Smooth Sailing! Bumpy Rides Will Disappear On Blaine Road After Major Project Is Complete

Smooth Sailing! Bumpy Rides Will Disappear On Blaine Road After Major Project Is Complete

BLAINE, Minn.  – The Radisson Road makeover has begun.

Crews are busy working on a two-mile construction project from 109th to just north of Main Street in Blaine.

“This is a huge deal,” said Anoka County Commissioner Julie Jeppson. “Specifically to get the road into quality shape for when MnDOT detours people from highway 65 construction.”

“This is a very important corridor to this part of Blaine and Anoka County,” said Joe MacPherson of the Anoka County Transportation Department.

Radisson gets plenty of traffic. Some drivers use it as an alternative to avoid gridlock and stop lights on Minnesota state highway 65.

“On this road currently we’re in the neighborhood of approximately 16 to 19,000 cars per day…” Macpherson said. “This roadway acts as a north-south reliever road, an augmenter for trunk highway 65. A lot of folks that are coming and going either in the morning going to work, dropping their kids off at sporting events, or in the evening they’re coming home, they’re going out trying to spend a night on the town with family and friends. This is what they depend on to have reliable transportation.”

Because of upcoming construction on highway 65, Radisson could get even more traffic.

“When you type in an address on your Google map it finds the quickest and most efficient way to get you from point a to point b,” Macpherson said. “A lot of times that’s the county road and that’ll be Radisson Road over the course of the next four years.”

Smooth sailing

When this mill and overlay job is finished in mid-June, drivers will discover that their Radisson commute is a much better ride.

“It’s going to be very similar to when the Zamboni goes by on the ice rink,” Macpherson said. “It’s going to smooth out all those bumps, all the chatter you feel as you’re driving down the road. You’ll have a fresh new road to drive on.”

According to MacPherson, repairing the roadway surface is just part of the project.

“You’ll notice as you drive along through the corridor while construction’s going on, you’ll see they’re removing the catch basins which catch storm water or runoff from a rain event,” MacPherson said. “They are replacing those because over time they wear out.”

The good news is that the project is not going to interrupt routes to a couple of major sporting events in Blaine.

WATCH

“I do know the most important thing is it will be done by the 3M Open starting July 21st,” Jeppson said.

“It will be very similar to years past,” MacPherson said. “We’re not changing the geometry of the roadway or access control or any of that. This is more of a maintenance project.”

“Target USA Cup is the week prior so I think probably the hope is to get it all done around before that time,” Jeppson said. “However it is more imperative to have it done before the 3M because there’s other ways to get into the NSC.”

MacPherson has some basic tips for people going through a cone zone – put away the cell phone, pay attention to road crews and know where you’re going.

SOURCE: NORTH METRO TV