(Spirit Lake)—Officials with the Iowa Department of Transportation now say the stretch of Highway 86 between Iowa Highway 9 and the Minnesota border will be closed to traffic effective this coming Monday, April 15th…weather permitting…for reconstruction.
Traffic will be detoured using Iowa Highway 9, U.S. Highway 71 and Interstate 90.
Work on the $7.4 million dollar project was originally scheduled to have started by now, but had to be delayed by the ongoing colder than usual spring.
The general contractor is Cedar Valley Construction of Cedar Rapids.
The project is expected to take the entire construction season to complete. It involves widening the pavement and shoulders, leveling off some hills, and doing away with a series of sharp curves at the Minnesota border, where numerous accidents have taken place over the years.
