Street resurfacing begins in downtown Minneapolis

Jul 31, 2011 // by Commuter Connection // News // No Comments

The City of Minneapolis is moving ahead on work to repave many Downtown streets. This week, crews are resurfacing 3rd Street South. By October, more than 50 blocks of Downtown streets will have smoother driving surfaces for everyone who lives in and visits the heart of Minneapolis.

The affected streets will get a mill and overlay treatment, a process that involves removing the top layer of asphalt and replacing it with a new driving surface. This work should extend the lives of these streets by a decade. Bicycle lanes will be added to some of the streets, improving bike access to downtown.

Drivers should be aware that there will be periodic closings and detours throughout downtown Minneapolis as this paving work takes place. However, much of the construction will take place during non-peak traffic hours. Plus, weekday construction will generally be performed on one side of the street at a time so the other side can remain open to traffic.

This resurfacing work is in addition to street construction being performed by Hennepin County this summer. Stretches of Park and Washington avenues are being resurfaced by County crews this summer. When you factor in these and other City and County paving and seal coating projects, more than half of all streets in the downtown core will have a driving surface that’s three years old or less by autumn.

The City’s downtown street resurfacing work will take place on the following streets:

3rd Street South– From Hennepin Avenue to 11th Avenue South
4th Avenue South – from Washington Avenue to 10th Street South
5th Avenue South – from Washington Avenue to 10th Street South
5th Street South – from 11th Avenue South to 13th Avenue South
6th Street South – from Hennepin Avenue to 13th Avenue South
7th Street South – from Hennepin Avenue to Chicago Avenue

Many of the streets being resurfaced by the City were used as detour routes after the Aug. 1, 2007 collapse of the I-35W Bridge over the Mississippi River. These streets suffered more wear and tear than usual. As a result, $2.3 million in Federal Highway Administration emergency relief funding is going towards resurfacing these thoroughfares. Additional resurfacing is part of a High-Volume Corridor Reconditioning project, which targets streets identified as among the busiest Downtown.

For more information on the City’s downtown street paving projects, go to www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/cip/resurfacing2011-downtown.

UPDATE

From July 25th to August 6th, we paved 3rd St S from 11th Ave S to Hennepin Ave.
Last weekend, we paved 5th St S from 13th Ave S to 11th Ave S
Also last weekend, we paved 7th St S from Chicago Ave to 5th Ave S
On Wednesday, we started paving 4th Ave S from Washington to 10th St S. We hope to complete paving of 4th tomorrow (Saturday)
We plan to start paving 5th Ave S on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. If the weather cooperates, we might be able to complete paving of 5th the following Saturday.
We plan to start paving 6th St from 5th Ave S to 13th Ave S on September 10th. If the weather cooperates, we might be able to complete those 8 blocks by sunset on September 11th.
We do not yet have an estimated start date for paving of 6th and 7th Streets west of 5th Ave S. At this time, I am estimating that we are likely to start paving 6th and/or 7th in mid-September, no earlier than September 6th.