Road work for Hwy. B moved up in Dunn County

“It was a project that we thought needed to get done sooner rather than later,” said Dunn County Highway Commissioner Dustin Binder.

The 3.3 miles of Highway B from Packer Drive to Highway BB will be repaved with new asphalt later this summer. The section of roadway was planned to be repaved in 2024 but the project was moved up to 2023.

“It’s in dire need. So the roadway is very cracked, rotted, deteriorated,” said Binder. “It’s a very, very rough riding road. It’s basically seen its useful life.”

The stretch of county roadway sees about 4,500 cars per day.

“It’s a pretty significant amount of vehicles for a county road system for sure,” Binder said. “It’s our most utilized county road in Dunn County that serves a large area in the surrounding communities.” Binder said.

The reconstruction project is still in the design phase, Binder said.

“We’re coming up with an asphalt design for this particular project with estimated costs to complete the project,” he said. “So right now, there is no assigned detour we are anticipating, just traffic lane closures which will be bi-directional lane closures with flagging during construction.”

Binder said he anticipates a construction start date between July and October.

The announcement follows a county notice earlier this year that reconstruction of another portion of Highway B, from Highways 12/29 to Packer Drive, would be delayed to 2024 because of improvements to the Union Pacific railroad crossing, north of the highway’s intersection with Interstate 94.

“The railroad is upgrading their railroad crossing. During the process of this project being constructed, we anticipate right now that County Road B will be shut down for the railroad crossing and we’re tentatively scheduled for May 1 to June 1 of 2024,” Binder said.

Estimated costs of this year’s project is about $1 million. State reimbursement funding is available once the project is completed, he said.