Photo by Deb Gau The Minnesota Department of Transportation is putting the word out to expect detours on Highway 68 beginning May 9. Besides holding an open house, MnDOT placed an electronic sign along College Drive in Marshall to alert motorists about the construction.

MINNEOTA — The road construction season will be kicking off with a project that will detour traffic between Minneota and Marshall this summer.

A $9.2 million project will widen the shoulders of Minnesota Highway 68, decrease the slope of the roadside ditches and replace culverts.

Drainage improvements near the city of Porter are also included in this project, Minnesota Department of Transportation representatives said.

Highway 68 will close between Minneota and Marshall starting May 9. On Tuesday, MnDOT held an open house event in Minneota to answer questions about the planned construction. They also took the extra step of putting up temporary electronic signs in Marshall announcing the detour.

“We wanted to let people know ahead of time, and plan,” said Shanna Kent, resident engineer for the project. “The electronic message boards seem to catch people’s attention better.”

For years, area residents have had safety concerns about the narrow shoulders and steep ditches on Highway 68. Currently, the roadway is 32 feet wide, with two 12-foot driving lanes and a four-foot paved shoulder on each side of the road. After construction, there will be an additional four feet of gravel shoulder on each side of the highway, Kent said. She said the construction would also reduce the slope of the roadside ditches in the project area.

Speakers at the open house said construction would start near Marshall and travel west on Highway 68. The construction zone will stretch from the Redwood River in Marshall to North Grant Street in Minneota.

Construction crews will also be replacing some culverts between Minneota and Marshall, and replacing culverts north and south of Porter, Kent said.

Kent said there will be detours in place during construction. The biggest detour will follow Minnesota Highway 19 west of Marshall. Access to the city of Ghent will be on Lyon County Road 5, and access to the city of Minneota will be on Lyon County Road 3.

Kent said there will also be detours in place for the culvert replacements near Porter. The detour for that part of the project will run on County Road 20 and U.S. Highway 75. For the culvert replacements south of Porter, the detour will be on County Roads 7 and 19.

Construction is planned to start May 9 and end Sept. 30 if weather permits, MnDOT representatives said.

More information about the Highway 68 project is available online at https://www.dot.state.mn.us/d8/projects/hwy68minneotatomarshall/index.html.

There are a couple of other construction projects planned in MnDOT’s District 8 this summer. Repairs are planned for the bridge over the Redwood River on Highway 19 in Redwood Falls, just west of U.S. Highway 71. MnDOT said the bridge would need to be closed up to three times while concrete work is completed. At other times, bridge lanes will be narrowed town to 10 feet to accommodate two-way traffic.

Another project planned to start in July will resurface part of Highway 71 and add a bypass lane in the city of Olivia. A detour will be in place for that project.