Engineers, residents weigh in on County Road 42 reconstruction

Prior Lake American

In the first of many steps for a county project, Scott County staff held an open house on Thursday, Jan. 11 for the preliminary design for the County Road 42 reconstruction in 2020.

The project involves changing 1.3 miles of County Road 42 between county roads 17 and 83 from a rural two-lane to a four-lane divided highway.

“This is one of the higher priority roadways in the county, if not the highest,” Assistant County Engineer Curt Kobilarcsik said. “We’ll take the public comments from tonight, we’ll take city input ... (and) we’ll take the next steps with our design.”

Though there might not seem like much traffic on the road at the moment, the improvements are being done to account for an expected increase of traffic in the future. The section is one of the last portions of 42 with two lanes.

“With the projected traffic in the future and projected development in the corridor, it is needed to be able to expand this roadway,” Kobilarcsik said.

In addition to the four-lane highway, the county will be improving and adding paved shoulders and turn lanes and trails on both sides of the road.

“That’s important for us as a county to provide those opportunities for the residents,” Kobilarcsik said. “Those are the bigger components of the project.”

The preliminary design timeframe will go from January to April of this year, the final design from May to December 2018, with another open house in summer 2018. Right-of-way and easement acquisition will take place in 2019 and construction starting in spring 2020.

“It’s the most important roadway south of the Minnesota River and the metropolitan,” County Engineer Tony Winiecki said.

Prior Lake resident Charlie Maas said he lives along 42.

“I’m fine with it,” Maas said. “I was just wondering about the sidewalks and which way the expansion on the road was going to go. I’ll miss my trees, some of them, but I guess I gotta deal with that.”

Shakopee resident Deb Sweet said she only uses County Road 42 to go to Burnsville a couple times each month and is concerned with the intersection just beyond the improvements.

“If you’re going west on 42 and you want to go south on 17, you don’t always see the cars coming if they don’t mow (the grass),” Sweet said.

The project is estimated to cost more than $8 million.

There is also a county road project being done in 2018 to install dual left-turn lanes, permanent traffic signals, install trails and sidewalks and do road surfacing.