3.1. National Projects

Highway 38 (Edge of the Wilderness National Scenic Byway Corridor), Minnesota

 

The Project: The 47-mile Minnesota’s Trunk Highway 38, the Edge of the Wilderness National Scenic Byway Corridor won the 2005 Best Project award at AASHTO.

Location: Minnesota, Northern woods, Chippewa National Forest.

Context Setting: Rural, Forest.

 

Road Classification: Trunk Highway/Principle Arterial

Stakeholders: Mn/DOT, federal, local and state agencies, the public, and other stakeholders.

The Process:  The corridor reconstruction project focused on maintaining the roadway’s existing alignment, incorporating four-foot paved shoulders with a rumble strip and an additional two feet of reinforced soft shoulder to improve safety and accommodate bicyclists, while reducing the roadway’s impact on the land. This significantly reduced the amount of vegetation that needed to be cleared. A computer visualization study exploring flexibility in design of the roadway cross-section to achieve context-sensitive roadway.

Photo Credit: Mn/DOT, Neil Kveberg.

This corridor interpretive park and trailhead site along the Byway links users to a multi-use trail that crosses the river and links to other area trail systems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before Photo (top) and after Visualization

Photo Credit: SEH, Mike Fraser