September 29, 2010

Highway road construction continues on schedule throughout McKenzie County

By Tina Foreman
Farmer Staff Writer

After some unseasonably cold temperatures and snow in the area, it may seem to some people that road construction season will soon be over. But according to the North Dakota Department of Transportation, that isn’t the case.
“Most of the road construction projects in McKenzie County are right on schedule for an Oct. 15 completion,” says Joel Wilt, NDDOT district engineer. “Some of the projects had fallen behind but have since caught up, and as long as the weather holds, things will wrap up on time.”
To someone with an untrained eye, driving through many areas of the current road work, it looks like nothing is changing and completion is a long way off. But Wilt stresses that this is not the case.
“We have three separate projects going on Highway 85 south of Watford City to Grassy Butte and they are all on schedule,” adds Wilt. “In addition to the projects south of Watford City, we also have several turn lane projects that may look stalled, but again, they are right on track.”
According to Wilt, the turn lane projects appear to be stalled because they are working on those in phases.
“We are only allowed to have so many areas torn up at a time,” says Wilt. “So with the turn lanes, we are working north to south and doing one phase at each location. Once we have finished the phase, we start over in the north moving south with the next phase. This process may make people think the project will be left for some time, but that is not the case.”
Although the projects in McKenzie County all have Oct. 15 completion dates, according to Wilt, road construction season in North Dakota often goes well into November.

WATFORD CITY WEATHER