New Road Construction In Williston -- Underpass Under US Highway 2 -- Connecting 18th Street And Bison Drive; May 15, 2013

Updates

August 26, 2014: update and video here. 

Later, 6:33 p.m. central time: A reader sent me this (a huge thank you).

This is the graphic of the new underpass under the bypass which used to be "west" of Williston.

http://www.cityofwilliston.com/usrfiles/PW/News/SOIA7002130019PublicHandout.pdf

This is an incredible interchange/underpass  -- I am quite impressed. Note that in addition to the underpass itself, there is a 3/4 interchange at 18th Street.

This is going to be a real headache during construction, but my hunch is that the engineers have come up with some great detours, based on my recent experience at the "new" four-mile corner under construction now. But with much of Williston west of the bypass now, and the hospital on the east side of the bypass there was little choice. I remember Grand Forks grappling with a similar problem decades ago when the hospital was on one side of the tracks and a large segment of the population was "trapped" on the other side.

 Original Post

From The Williston Wire:

The North Dakota Department of Transportation, Park Construction and SRF Consulting Group would like to notify all motorists of the Williston area of the upcoming construction project on US Highway 2 which will affect the intersections of 9th Ave North West, 18th Street West and Box Elder Street.  An underpass will be constructed on US Highway 2 which will connect 18th Street West to Bison Drive. During this construction traffic will be routed on to a temporary bypass along the west side of US Highway 2.

I think this is the intersection on "the bypass" just north of Marquis Plaza on the west side of the bypass and Mercy Medical Center on the east. 

This is quite a big deal.

Combine that with the huge construction project west of Williston at the 4-mile corner and one really gets the feeling that things have really changed in just a couple of years. It's really quite incredible how fast these projects are moving along -- again, the boom did not really begin in Williston until 2007, it finally took hold in 2010, perhaps, and in those three or four years, folks had to "imagine it," convince local citizens of the need; get city/county approval; plan; raise funds, and now start building.