Benton County Invests in Safer Roads for Growing Community

FOLEY (WJON News) -- Benton County has been awarded state bonding money for a road construction project near the Sauk Rapids-Rice High School.

The Minnesota Legislature is awarding the county $3-million to make improvements to Mayhew Lake Road. The county will be required to provide a 50% match to access the funds.

County Administrator Monty Headley says that area of the county is growing fast and they need to make some safety improvements to handle that growth...

The plan is to dedicate the resources toward two primary safety improvements on Mayhew Lake Road. That would be a roundabout at what's now called Storm Street and then another roundabout at Osaka Road. So, as you may know, those two intersections just have stop signs, and we're definitely concerned about additional traffic being generated by the child center and, of course, the activities center.

Meanwhile, another significant road construction project in Benton County will get underway in a couple of weeks after school is out for the summer.

The county is building a new roundabout intersection at County Road 29 and Mayhew Lake Road, north of the high school.

Headley says it is a precursor to next year's extension of County Road 29. He says drivers will need to find an alternate route starting in early June...

That intersection is going to be a complete closure while we construct a roundabout over the summer. We got a Federal Highway Safety Improvement Plan grant to help fund that.  The total project cost is about $3-million. So, that will go this summer, and drivers should expect a complete closure at that intersection.

Other projects this summer include the resurfacing of Golden Spike Road and bridge replacements at County Road 12 over Little Rock Creek and at County Road 13 over the Elk River.