Benton County Commissioners Vote for Road Improvement Plan

(KNSI) – The Benton County Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 Tuesday to adopt a new Road Improvement Plan.

Public Works Director Chris Byrd says $43 million will be spent between 2024 and 2028. He presented to the board on how projects are selected. Minnesota Department of Transportation vehicles have special equipment that helps staff get an idea about pavement conditions.

Byrd says, “These vans have lasers mounted to the front and in the back. So, those lasers are scanning the roadway as they drive across it. We learn things about the amount of cracking the road has, how much running does that road have? What’s the depth of that running? What’s the ride feel like? How rough is the roadway?”

Byrd says county engineers can now better predict when construction work will be needed in the future. “We can start to see trends and start to predict how fast the road is degrading. So, we can kind of look ahead and say, ‘Okay, maybe today this road is in a fair condition but within five years it’s going to drop below that and be in poor condition therefore we want to try to do something over the next five years.'”

Next year’s big projects include a reconstruction of CSAH 3 and CSAH 5 in Gilman and CSAH 7 from Highway 95 to CSAH 4.

The lone dissenting vote was Beth Schlangen who wanted a full reconstruction and widening of CSAH 25, rather than a mill and overlay project that should last 10 to 15 years.

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