State details plans of Hwy 13/Hwy 64 repaving projects

The summer of 2024 won’t be an easy one for travelers and motorists in the city of Medford.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has announced plans to resurface both Hwy 64 and Hwy 13 in the city of Medford that summer along with reconfiguring the Hwy 13/64 intersection to improve traffic flow and safety.

On Thursday, area residents and business owners along the planned road projects met at city hall for a listening session with representatives from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc. (SEH), the engineering firm designing the project.

Tara Krista a project manager with SEH walked those at the meeting through the project. The Public involvement meeting was the opportunity for residents to give feedback to the state and planners to the project.

The most pressing question among those present was how the project would impact them, and how long would it take to get done.

According to Krista, the work is part of three separate projects which combined will include about 3.4 miles of work. The work includes the resurfacing of 2.3 miles of Hwy 13 from CTH O north to Taylor Street.

She explained that work will focus on milling and replacing the road surface and upgrading the curb ramps to meet accessibility requirements.

Similar work will be done on 1.1 miles of Hwy 64 from National Ave. to Hwy 13 with the milling and overlaying the pavement and upgrades to 37 curb ramps along the road.

According to Krista, the work will be done under traffi c. She noted that both roads are busy local arteries and also serve as important truck routes. Hwy 13 through the city has about 10,000 vehicles a day traveling on it with about 14% of them being trucks. By comparison Hwy 64 averages about 13,000 cars a day.

She said the plans are to mill about 2.75 inches of blacktop from the surface and replace it with an equal amount of new blacktop.

The majority of work will take place in the intersection of the two highways. The resurfacing work is considered maintenance projects by the state.

According to Krista, the work on the intersection is being driven by the number of collisions that have been reported and the need for safety improvements. She said there have been 17 accidents at the intersection in the past five years. “Of those, 15 were related to opposing left turn movements,” Krista said.

The project will still keep it a signaled intersection. However, it will involve removal of the concrete medians and concrete islands for turn lanes. The road configuration will be changed so that the north and southbound left turn lanes are aligned and the same with the east and westbound turn lanes. The intersection will also be widened to accommodate turning trucks and the traffic signals will be replaced.

Resident Charles Prihoda asked if anything was going to be done to the Hwy 64 bridge over the Black River in regard to possibly adding sidewalk to the north side.

Krista replied that no work was being planned for the bridge during this project and suggested that if it was done in the future it would need to be a project on its own.

“The bridge would be a single project by itself,” she said.

While not a massive project compared to others around the state, having it open to through traffic throughout its construction will bring occasional headaches for motorists. The project is expected to begin in April 2023 and continue through with completion by October 15 of that year.

“More than likely it will be a phased project,” explained Nick Pitsch, a project manager with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

During construction there will be periodic lane closures and flaggers. The intersection will have temporary lights installed throughout the project.

She was optimistic the project would be able to be completed without too many negative impacts to area businesses.

“The businesses are all in this together,” she said.