Photo by Deb Gau Saratoga Street south of Minnesota Highway 23 in Marshall is set to be part of at MnDOT detour later this summer during resurfacing work on Highway 59. On Tuesday, Marshall City Council members approved a detour agreement, but they also voiced concerns about routing a detour near a residential neighborhood

MARSHALL — A planned construction detour on Saratoga Street later this summer divided members of the Marshall City Council on Tuesday.

While the council narrowly approved a detour agreement with the Minnesota Department of Transportation during planned construction on U.S. Highway 59, some members said they had serious concerns about the safety of the route.

Marshall Mayor Bob Byrnes said the city engineer should pass on the concerns to MnDOT.

“The concerns that were expressed were true concerns, and you can communicate those,” Byrnes said.

MnDOT is planning to repair and resurface the concrete on portions of U.S. Highway 59 south of Marshall this summer. The first segment of construction is planned to start in July, and will run from the intersection of Highway 59 and U.S. Highway 14 near Garvin south to the intersection of Highway 59 and Highway 30 in Murray County. Then in August, MnDOT will also be working on Highway 59 in Marshall, from Highway 23 south to Lyon County Road 6.

The four-lane parts of Highway 59 in Marshall will remain open to traffic during construction, said Marshall City Engineer Jason Anderson. However, that won’t be possible on the two-lane parts of the highway.

“As part of the project, specifically when they’re doing work on the two-lane portion of Highway 59, there will be a detour in place,” Anderson said. “It will send traffic down County Road 6, and up County Road 35, which eventually turns into Saratoga Street in the Marshall city limits.”

Anderson said the construction around Marshall is anticipated to start in mid- to late August, and would take about three to five weeks.

“There will be some concrete panel replacement wherever they deem it necessary, and then they’ll do a diamond grinding of the surface” to smooth the roadway, Anderson said.

“Is there any way we could encourage the state to push (the detour) up one more county road south, because of the residential neighborhood?” said council member James Lozinski. Routing traffic onto County Road 7 instead of Saratoga Street would avoid residential traffic, especially as school starts up, he said. “It’s a little more out of the way, but it’s less intrusive to the traffic and the residents in that neighborhood.”

“The only problem is, that’s a gravel road — it would be (County Road) 35 and 7,” Byrnes told Lozinski.

Council member Steven Meister also said the “J-turn” at the intersection of Saratoga Street and Highway 23 could complicate the detour.

“If people are coming south, they’re going to have to go down 23 and get on that J-turn and come back,” Meister said. “This will give that J-turn a true test of its safety.”

Council member Craig Schafer suggested asking MnDOT to place signage encouraging truck traffic to turn onto County Road 11 or County Road 9 to reach the detour without taking the J-turn.

Anderson said he could bring up the council’s concerns to MnDOT. But, he said,

“I think this is their preferred detour. I think they have confidence the J-turn will be just fine, and it’s the shortest route to impact traffic,” he said.

“I think Marshall is now back to starting school after Labor Day, so that would help alleviate some of the concern you’re having,” said council member Don Edblom.

“I’ve just got a bad gut feeling on this, so I’ll be voting no,” Meister said of the detour agreement. “I’ve got no scientific data, just a gut feeling.”

Lozinski pointed out that there were serious crashes at the Highway 23/Saratoga Street intersection the last time there was a detour there several years ago. The crashes were what eventually led to the construction of the J-turn, to improve safety.

A vote to accept MnDOT’s detour agreement passed on a narrow margin, 4-3. Council members Meister, Lozinski and Russ Labat cast the votes against.