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Highway 29 detour in effect

Lead Summary

Roadwork started Monday  (July 21) on Minnesota Highway 29 south.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) will be milling down 11 miles of Minnesota Highway 29 south from the Benson city limits to Minnesota Highway 40. It will also be replacing three bridges.
It is estimated the $6.5 million project will be completed in October. During the nearly four months that the work is underway, the highway will be closed.
The road construction will mean traffic on the stretch of highway will be detoured. Only residents who live within the road closure or motorists whose destination falls within the closure will be allowed to use Highway 29. The road will not be passable at the bridge replacement sites.
The MnDot official detour out of Benson has drivers taking U.S. Highway 12 east to DeGraff where they will be detoured on Swift County 31 south. The highway becomes Chippewa County 4 7.7 miles south of DeGraff. It is then another 3 miles to Minnesota Highway 40. Drivers will take a right on Highway 40 and travel 6 miles west to where Highway 40 and Minnesota Highway 29 join.
Traffic coming north toward Benson on Minnesota Highway 29 or Minnesota Highway 40 will have to take the detour going south on Chippewa County 4. It turns into Swift County 31 three miles south of Minnesota Highway 40. The detour then goes into DeGraff where drivers will take U.S. Highway 12 west into Benson.
There is no easy detour coming off of Minnesota 29 south from Montevideo that takes a driver straight south to U.S. 12 west of Benson on a tar road. That means a lot of drivers who don’t want to go well out of their way to get to Benson, will be using those gravel roads.
Swift County will get compensated for the extra wear and tear on County Road 31 during the time Minnesota 29 is being worked on, but not a lot. The payment will be $3,456.
The project will use cold-in-place recycling, which is a longer-term fix than a traditional mill and overlay.

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