The group of county, city, township and legislative officials who met with study engineers in Minot also took the opportunity to make a case for four-laning and to highlight danger points on the existing roadway.

The North Dakota Department of Transportation has been constructing passing lanes on Highway 52 from Carrington to the northern border. This year, the final segment from east of Balfour to Fessenden will be constructed. Within the corridor of the proposed four-laning, two passing lanes were constructed last year.

“We did hear a lot of comments from the public and stakeholders that the passing lanes are nice, but there was this push for four lanes and that, I think, snowballed and was brought to leadership. This last legislative session, there was a bill passed to provide funding for this initial feasibility study,” said project manager Mike Huffington with Ulteig Engineering, which is conducting the study.

“If you just look purely at the numbers, there’s not a capacity issue and the safety, the crash data, falls within normal ranges,” he said. But he added, “There’s definitely a difference between safety and crash data that you see on paper and the perceptions the public has.”

Jill Schramm/MDN Mike Huffington, project manager with Ulteig Engineering, right, takes a question from state Sen. Shawn Vedaa of Velva at a U.S. Highway 52 stakeholders meeting Monday at the N.D. Department of Transportation headquarters in Minot. At center is Sundre Township Chairman Todd Hustad.

The average daily traffic(ADT) count ranges from almost 5,000 vehicles between Logan and Sawyer to 2,250 at Voltaire.

“Another interesting thing to note is just the percent of truck traffic on this corridor relative to other roadways in the state. There’s a very high percentage of heavy truck traffic that utilize the U.S. 52 corridor,” Huffington said.

Even considering the truck factor, the current traffic rating for that stretch of highway shows it is operating at an acceptable level, he said.

However, stakeholders pointed out a separate study of two-lane rural roadways in the state used a different, weighted calculation that found Highway 52 between Minot and Voltaire has one of the highest crash rates. Nor do traffic counts take into account that motorists are avoiding that route, they said.

“I do think – the section in between Voltaire and Minot – the passing lanes help in the short term, but I still think you have a number of safety concerns that I see there currently on the roadway that I think a four-lane would address,” Ward County Engineer Dana Larsen said. “Where there’s 2,000-3,000 vehicles a day, I think the passing lanes will work well. But not in that 5,000. In fact, if you back up a few years ago, I think it peaked at almost 6,000 ADT in that Logan to Sawyer area. So, I do think people have chosen not to drive that roadway.”

Engineers initiated the feasibility study last October. They have identified a number of constraints that a four-laning project would face. Those include a railroad crossing, limited existing right-of-way around Velva, floodplains, snowmobile trails, Fish & Wildlife easements, utilities, stormwater drainage and levees in Velva as well as pedestrian crossing at Velva that would need to be improved.

Wetland identification has been completed, and surveys have started for cultural resources and threatened, endangered species. A noise analysis will begin this summer, Huffington said.

He noted public meetings will be held in Minot and Velva in October.