By: Cook County Highway Engineer Robert Kimmel-Hass

With the 2024 construction season wrapped up at the Highway Department, we’ve been taking care of business and working overtime on projects for the 2025 season. Projects are slated all throughout the county, from Tofte to the Gunflint Trail and up to Grand Portage, so let’s kick it into overdrive and see what’s going on!

Tofte

Beginning in the west end of the county we have a road improvement project taking place on CR 24/Tofte Park Road. The eastern half of the road through the park will be reconstructed to accommodate heavier traffic, and the western half of the project will receive a mill and overlay. Multiple town hall meetings and site visits with residents have transformed this project into something that was developed for the users of that road, and I want to thank everyone, including Tofte Township, for working with us on it. That project was recently awarded to KGM Contractors for about $777,000. Funding for this project comes from the Transportation Sales Tax (TST) fund. Construction will begin after the July 4th parade and is expected to last into the Fall.

Lutsen

Over on UT 97/Cascade Beach Road, we are replacing a structurally deficient bridge over Spruce Creek. The new bridge will be a concrete slab span structure with treated timber railings. If you’re curious what that could look like we just completed one this summer on CR 28/Alfred Creek Road over Alfred Creek. This bridge will be funded with Special Town Bridge funds and a small amount of local dollars.

Grand Marais

Moving into Grand Marais we have our largest project in recent memory happening on the Gunflint Trail. The project begins at 5th Ave W where the road will be resurfaced, as you make the curve and head up hill an additional 1-mile-long climbing lane will be added up to Pincushion Drive along with resurfacing the road, the resurfacing will continue up to the 4 corners intersection. Bypass and thru lanes will be added at the Cutoff Road intersection and at 4 corners to better facilitate traffic flow. Cutoff Road will also be resurfaced, and new culverts will be installed. Old Ski Hill Road will be realigned into Cutoff Road to create safer and clearer traffic movements. Lastly, the structurally deficient concrete box culvert that holds the Little Devil Track River will be replaced with a 160-ft long prestressed concrete beam bridge. The bridge will allow the Little Devil Track River to be restored back to its natural habitat and prevent additional erosion happening downstream. We are working in tandem with Cook Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) where they also have a project in the Little Devil Track River that will restore some stream banks and provide natural stream stabilization. Adjacent to these projects will also be a multi-use trail that picks up where our previous trail project ended at Great Expectations School (GES), continues along the Gunflint in front of the Law Enforcement Center (LEC) and behind the Highway Department and School, and connects to existing sidewalk in front of the recycling center.

Funding for these Gunflint and Cutoff Road project comes from a wide variety of state and federal sources: on-system bridge funds, Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) funds, Active Transportation (AT) funds, Transportation Alternatives (TA) Program funds, Outdoor Heritage Funds, Motor Vehicle Lease Sales Tax (MVLST) funds, Surface Transportation Block Grant Program (STBGP) funds, Federal Lands Access Program (FLAP) funds, TST funds and County State Aid Highway (CSAH) funds. In short, we have been awarded or given north of $11 million towards these projects and are projected to spend less than 10% of that from our annual CSAH fund balance. The Cutoff Road project will be solely funded with TST funds. Bids were recently received from several contractors for these projects and paperwork is in process to bring them to the county board for approval. Construction is expected to start mid-May for these. Expect long delays on the Gunflint Trail as this project will limit traffic crossing Little Devil Track River to one lane for the entire summer and into fall.

Hovland

Heading east into Hovland we are resurfacing the existing 2.5-miles of pavement on the Arrowhead Trail, replacing all the culverts, and upsizing the culvert at Otis Creek into a larger box culvert. Funding for this is provided through our annual CSAH allocation from the state. In conjunction with this project UT 88/Chicago Bay Road will also be resurfaced and have its culverts replaced. Funding for Chicago Bay Road comes from our TST funds. I want to thank everyone for attending the town hall event that was held back on May 5th and for providing comments about both of these project. Events like that and the input that is provided really make our projects better and more community-focused.

Grand Portage

Lastly, our Mile Creek Road project, up in Grand Portage, will be wrapped up within the first month of the summer. There were some design changes that needed to be done mid-project that resulted in procurement delays and led to extending the project another season.

As always, if you have any questions feel free to give me a call at 218-387-3014 or email me at [email protected]

See you on the road,

Robbie

County Connections is a column on timely topics and service information from your Cook County government. Cook County – Supporting Community.