Highway 75 emergency repairs to start soon

The rough driving lanes on North Highway 75 in Luverne will get emergency repairs by the end of July, according to Minnesota Department of Transportation officials who met with local leaders July 2.
They’re being called emergency repairs because they’ll carry the road surface over until it’s rebuilt in 2025.
Greg Ous, MnDOT District 7 engineer and Sam Parker, District 7 principal planner, met with county commissioners.
“We are trying to give you an understanding of where we are at for our fiscal position and what the struggles are on portions of the system,” Ous said.
He said Highway 75 is one of five state roads in District 7 scheduled for emergency repairs this summer after harsh winter temperatures caused water to enter the road’s joints, causing the roadbed to deteriorate.
Ous inspected the roadway and announced in May the schedule for emergency repairs because moisture in the road joints created rough driving lanes. He said drivers are using portions of the center turning lane to avoid these rough areas.
“That’s what we need to get away from,” Ous said. “We need to get them back into the driving lane where people expect them to be.”
Duininck Inc. of Prinsburg was commissioned to complete the estimated $150,000 in repairs.
Crews are expected to finish repairing both driving lanes from Main Street to Veterans Drive by July 31, depending on the weather.
Workers will mill off and level rough road areas and seal joints before applying a new bituminous layer.
“We are trying to do the best we can to seal that area off and not have the freeze-thaw action we saw last year,” Ous said.
In the 10-year plan, he said District 7 has the highest “poor” ride quality index (RQI) among the state’s eight districts.
Each year roadways receive a RQI rating. Any RQI 2.0 or less is considered poor. In 2017 North Highway 75’s RQI was 2.3.
District 7 is comprised of 13 counties in southwest Minnesota with headquarters located in Mankato.
Seventeen percent of District 7 road miles are rated poor. The metro area is the next highest with 12 percent.
The July repairs in Luverne are intended to keep the RQI above 2.0 until 2025 when North Highway 75 is scheduled for possible reconstruction from Luverne to the Rock-Pipestone county line.
Budget limitations could delay the project, however.
District 7 budgets around $100 million annually for projects. That amount declines to a low of $70 million in 2023 before climbing back to $100 million again by 2029.
Plans have already changed from last year for one Rock County project.
Increased cost in bituminous material has pushed the planned mill-and-overlay project of South Highway 75 from 2027 to 2028.
“There is more need than we have dollars,” Ous said.
Other than the emergency repairs on Highway 75, no major road projects are scheduled in Rock County until 2022, when work is completed on Interstate 90. The project is expected to take two years.