The City of Duluth hosts open house for Railroad Street Project
Intersection of Railroad Street and 5th Avenue West
On Monday evening, the City of Duluth hosted an open house for the public to ask questions about the City’s Railroad Street project for 2025.
The project will resurface a section of about 0.4 mile of Railroad Street spanning from 5th Avenue West to Canal Park Drive/Lake Avenue. The project will also replace the existing traffic signal systems along Railroad Street at Lake Avenue/Lake Place Drive and Canal Park Drive/Lake Avenue, along with improvements to pedestrian ramps.
“The idea here is a resurfacing project will get us the benefit of that smooth road. It will let us replace the signals that are past their useful life, past their design life, and replace those streetlights that are also past their life, while not risking spending a lot of funds that might, as part of that planning process, be found to totally reshape the road and help people use it.” said Joe Jurewicz, city engineer for the City of Duluth.
One of the main questions posed at the meeting came in regard to the use of the road while construction is being completed, as the segment of road grants access to multiple tourist destinations including Canal Park, the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (DECC), and Bayfront Festival Park.
“We’ll have full access for traffic one lane both ways during this. I think that’s the right answer for how we can get this actually built. But it is going to cause an impact for folks that are coming down here, both tourists and locals, coming to events. And we want to make sure they know that when they come to an event, when they come to trample, when they come to tall ships this summer, that they need to plan a little extra time,” said Jurewicz.
The project is currently in the end of its design phase and will soon go to construction bidding. Construction is planned to begin in the summer of 2025, and projected to be complete by the fall. To learn more about the Railroad Street project, click here.