A closure on U.S. Highway 169 will last nine months instead of 12 months and will begin later than previously anticipated.
The Department of Transportation finalized its contract with Burnsville-based Ames Construction Sept. 21, giving state officials a better grasp of the road project’s time line. The cost of the project came in at about $60 million instead of the MnDOT estimate of $70 million.
Instead of beginning construction immediately after work on State Highway 100 ends this fall, the new time line calls for the Highway 169 project to begin in January.
Highway 169 will close completely in Edina, between Bren Road and the Fifth Street and Lincoln Drive exit, from January and September 2017.
Workers will replace a bridge over Nine Mile Creek with a causeway, a raised road that will be supported by a platform and fill instead of suspended over the waterway like a bridge. MnDOT chose a causeway instead of a bridge because of the shorter construction time line. A bridge would have taken an estimated three years to construct.
Elsewhere on Highway 169, road resurfacing work will lead to lane closures between Highway 55 and Highway 62 during the project. The work involves cutting out chunks of roadway with wide cracks and replacing the surface with new material. Grooves will be added to the road to add friction and reduce noise.
For much of the duration of the project, the road will be narrowed to one lane in each direction between the section of the road that will be completely closed and Highway 55.
“We are proposing to allow at least one lane of traffic in either direction of 169 during the construction apart from that one segment where it’s going to be buttoned shut,” Project Manager Andrew Lutaya told audience members at a standing-room-only informational meeting Sept. 21 at AAA Minneapolis in St. Louis Park.
In the section of the highway that will remain open, MnDOT has instructed the contractor not to close two consecutive ramps on the highway.
Ramp closure
MnDOT does plan to permanently close the exit and entrance to southbound Highway 169 at West 16th Street in St. Louis Park.
“We were recording about 25 crashes in the last four-to-five years in this particular location,” Lutaya said. “Luckily enough, with the amount of traffic we’re experiencing on this corridor, we’re not seeing fatal crashes – mainly minor crashes and fender-benders. But it’s giving us a reason to close the ramp.”
MnDOT’s plan calls for a visual barrier in place of the ramp that will also essentially act as a noise wall. Farther south, a noise wall near Excelsior Boulevard will be replaced as a part of the project that entails repairing the Excelsior Boulevard bridge. However, the project will not involve replacing or adding noise walls throughout the corridor.
Lutaya said MnDOT sought to ensure that the project did not expand the road’s capacity because if it did the Federal Highway Administration would have required a noise analysis throughout the entire corridor.
“Of course, right now we don’t have the budget for it,” Lutaya said. “The walls being replaced are directly impacted by the construction itself.”
The exit and entrance to northbound Highway 169 at West 16th Street will remain open after the project because St. Louis Park officials did not provide consent to close off highway access on the east side of the road. Both access points on Highway 169 have featured short, substandard acceleration and deceleration lanes.
“It’s a very similar crash history between the west side and the east side, but they’re still minor crashes,” Lutaya said.
MnDOT could close the ramp without the city’s consent if fatal or severe crashes occurred at the site, he said.
Some audience members at the AAA event called the access point on the east side of Highway 169 dangerous and a problem at rush hour.
Speakers during St. Louis Park council meetings on the topic had been sharply divided. Many Minnetonka residents and officials opposed closing the ramp on the west side of Highway 169 due to local traffic implications while some St. Louis Park residents supported the move, calling it dangerous. Some St. Louis Park residents spoke in favor of keeping the ramp on the east side of Highway 100 open during a council meeting based on the access to the freeway system it provides the neighborhood.
Slightly to the south, MnDOT plans to address problems at Cedar Lake Road by adding acceleration and deceleration lanes. The current lane configuration has caused weaving issues and crashes, Lutaya said. The new lanes will be built on the highway’s existing shoulders near Cedar Lake Road, with guardrails and curbs pushed out to make room.
“We feel by lengthening the acceleration lane and deceleration lane in this are we will be solving the weaving issues we’re seeing at this location,” Lutaya said.
Bridge replacement plan
The bridge replacement project came as a result of a different set of problems.
MnDOT decided to move up its plan to replace the bridge at Nine Mile Creek by five years after a bridge inspection determined that columns supporting the bridge had been damaged by salt-based snow melt dripping onto the column.
“The original plan was to work on this bridge in 2021,” Lutaya explained. “We moved it up to coincide with the pavement rehabilitation on the corridor that could not wait until 2021.”
Because work on Highway 100 and Interstate 494 should end by this November, they will be able to support traffic diversions due to the Highway 169 closure, Lutaya said. Department officials also want to finish work on the west metro highways before a major multi-year project begins in 2018 on Interstate 35W begins in south Minneapolis. That project is expected to last for four years.
The new causeway along Highway 169 over Nine Mile Creek will be built above a “floating deck,” Lutaya said. Columns will support a platform that will be covered with fill and then the roadway.
“That in a sense gives you the structural benefit like a bridge does because the movement and the load on the pavement is supported,” Lutaya said.
“You’re building it like an old Roman road,” an audience member remarked, prompting Lutaya to agree.
The bridge that will be replaced was built in 1977 when Highway 169 was still a county road. The bridge did not include a good drainage system, Lutaya said.
The new causeway will contain flood control culverts.
“The intent is making sure the existing hydrology that is out there continues through when we finish our project,” Lutaya said.
On audience member wondered whether animals like deer could navigate past the causeway. Openings will be at least 9 feet wide, Lutaya said. A pedestrian tunnel included as part of the project will be 10 feet wide with an opening gap of 14 feet.
“So there’s plenty of room for wildlife to go through,” he said.
Traffic and noise concerns
Numerous audience members expressed concern that drivers will cut through neighborhoods during the project. Lutaya said he did not believe drivers who typically use Highway 169 to reach Minneapolis, Plymouth or other northern suburbs would use local streets because Highway 100 and I-494 should provide a faster route.
However, MnDOT is working with cities along Highway 169 about how to address the potential for increased traffic on local streets. Lutaya said barricades, signs and the use of extra law enforcement will “hopefully discourage cut-through traffic.”
Lutaya said, “It is a definite concern, and we’re hearing this. Yes, city representatives have clearly mentioned that to us.”
The challenge, he said, is making local streets less attractive for motorists trying to find a faster route out of the area while still allowing access for residents.
He predicted the worst problems will likely occur early on in the project as drivers seek to react and find an alternate route. MnDOT’s contract with Ames Construction calls for the company to continually evaluate concerns during the construction period and to consider responses to changing traffic patterns and potential safety issues.
“It’s a toolbox of strategies that can be implemented in a short period of time when the need arises to help mitigate the need we are seeing out there on the system,” Lutaya said.
Neighbors of the project also expressed concern about noise. Lutaya said the causeway, when complete, should cause less noise than the bridge since vehicles will not travel over bridge joints. Construction of the causeway will require pile-driving, but MnDOT officials said they intend to abide by municipal noise ordinances limiting hours in which noisy construction activities can occur.
An Edina resident spoke in favor of MnDOT’s choice of contractors for the project.
“Ames is one of the most experienced bridge contractors all over the country and probably one of the top highway heavy contractors in the country, so I think we’re in good hands,” he said.
More information about the project is available at mndot.gov/metro/projects/hwy169hopkins.
Contact Seth Rowe at seth.rowe@ecm-inc.com