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  • Arnolds Park City Council Discusses New Staging For Certain Work On Hwy. 71

Arnolds Park City Council Discusses New Staging For Certain Work On Hwy. 71

June 23, 2022 Steve Schwaller

(Arnolds Park)– The Arnolds Park City Council discussed some new phasing the Iowa Department of Transportation wants to do for the upcoming Highway 71 project during a special session this (Thurs.) afternoon. Mitch Watters is the council’s representative on the city’s Street Committee. He tells KUOO news they met recently with D.O.T officials wondering if the city would allow construction on some aspects of the project to be done during a two or three week stretch next summer…

“So that they could work during the day to put pavers and sidewalks and possibly some driveways in. We would still be allowing two-way travel on Highway 71. We would take the road down from a three lane highway down to a two lane but we would not be doing any closure of Highway 71 during that time. It’s all to facilitate better bidding for the D.O.T. because their previous bid they had came in so high and they only had one bidder that some of the comments that they heard was if we would do that, it would possibly generate some more bidding.”

Council members expressed support for allowing work on pavers, sidewalks and some driveways from 6:00 am to 9:30 pm during a two to three week stretch in June, 2023, with crews returning after August 10th to finish the remainder of that part of the project. Work on the highway itself would still be done during the off-seasons.

Watters added it’s his understanding the D.O.T still plans to go back out for bids this fall.

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