What Happens Next With Any Planned Improvements To Hwy 71 In Lakes Corridor Is Now Up To Local Leaders
What Happens Next With Any Planned Improvements To Hwy 71 In Lakes Corridor Is Now Up To Local Leaders
December 15, 2021Steve Schwaller
(Okoboji)– Planned improvements to Highway 71 through the lakes corridor now appear to be in the hands of the cities of Okoboji and Arnolds Park following a special meeting of the Okoboji City Council Tuesday evening with representatives of the Department of Transportation present. Okoboji Mayor Mary Vanderwoude…
“I mean I hear some wonderful questions tonight. The D.O.T was very forthcoming answering, everybody was very respectful, I couldn’t have asked for a better meeting. Probably tomorrow, we start getting responsive. You know, who’s really interested. We will put together a core group and go from there to fine tune it and then get a hold of the D.O.T and say hey. So we’ll go back at it probably first part of January, hopefully.”
Shane Timkowicz, an Assistant District Engineer with the Iowa Department of Transportation, laid out for possible options for staging the work through Arnolds Park and Okoboji…
“One of them was a staged option to build temporary pavement off to the side of the existing roadway and try to maintain one lane of traffic each direction. The second option we looked at doing was to use more of a phased approach that involved using signals to put into smaller blocks and sections to complete the project; the third one was much like the second one, except it had a couple locations where we felt there was an opportunity to speed up construction by closing U.S. 71 for short periods of time, that being a couple of weeks, and get those constructed in an expediated manner. And the fourth option was the uni-directional option that we’ve talked about before by keeping traffic flowing one direction.”
It was that fourth option the D.O.T had planned to proceed with originally. Timkowicz says they’ll work with local leaders as to how they want to move forward, adding that another option for construction during the fall only, could also be on the table…
Timkowicz says they’ll also be reaching out to the city of Arnolds Park to see how they would like to proceed as well.
Original plans had called for the project to go out for bid in February, 2022, with construction starting after this coming Labor Day. Timkowicz says that all will now likely be pushed back.
