Mower County Public Works reminds land owners of road reconditioning project on County Roads 4 and 7 in mid-June

 Mower County Public Works mailed letters out to surrounding land owners along County Road 4 and County Road 7 regarding the upcoming road reconditioning project to begin mid-late June. The Mower County Board of Commissioners received bids and awarded the construction contract to Rochester Sand & Gravel of Rochester.

The construction will be on County Road 4, between County Road 7, or 670th Ave and County Road 9, or 710th Avenue and on County Road 7, between 150th Street north of Adams and County Road 3, or 200th Street. Proposed work includes the following: Excavating along both sides of the roadway and adding gravel to widen the subgrade, adding material to the existing inner ditch slopes which will increase the road shoulders, extending the existing culverts that cross the roadway, milling and removing the top 4” and adding 4” of compacted gravel, construction of a new 24-foot wide bituminous driving surface with 2-foot aggregate shoulders.

The two curves on County Road 7 will be regraded and “softened” by increasing the radii to allow for a higher designed speed than the existing curves. This will require that both curves be physically relocated. The curves will be closed to traffic while this takes place; and the work will be done in 2 phases; when complete it will have a 34-foot wide paved surface. The 95-year-old box culvert bridge will also be replaced and the area around it will be cleaned up. Closure of the curves will require that a short-term detour be implemented. We will be detouring southbound transient traffic to the east and west at County Road 3 (200th St). Traffic going to Taopi and Leroy will be directed to use County Road 3 east to County Road 8 to Highway 45; while traffic going to Rose Creek and Adams will be directed to use County Road 3 to County Road 19 to State Highway 56. Traffic going north out of Adams will be directed to use the same routes in reverse order. All of County Road 7 will be open to local traffic except for the curves.

It is anticipated that most of the work will be done under local traffic, except when constructing the curves on County Road 7, allowing land owners to come and go from their homes and farms. However, transient traffic will be discouraged/not be allowed.

When complete, almost 10 miles of road will be reconstructed.