By 2011, County Road 26 should be all-new, with wider shoulders, improved sight distances and fresh pavement.

The work was to include a smoothing of curves around Eagle Lake, (the lake, not the city) but it would have required moving the road into a wetland. The county eventually decided the cost of satisfying environmental regulators was too high and abandoned that part of the project.

Bridge quintet

Five bridge projects (four bridges, technically) are also in the works this year.

Three of them are smaller and were funded by money allocated under the transportation bill. They mostly serve rural traffic and are especially important to farmers bringing crops to market.

Together the three bridges will cost about $1.44 million.

Another, a crossing of County Road 50 over railroad tracks and Minneopa Creek, finished just a few weeks ago.

Likewise, a new bridge over the Minnesota River at Judson has been completed.

But, in much the same circumstances of the County Road 26 projects, the wet soil around the area needs more time to dry before the road on the Blue Earth County side can be covered with asphalt. That’s scheduled to happen next summer.

Finally, the county is overlaying 20 miles of its 400 or so miles of highway, life-extending maintenance that each mile of road should get every 20 years or so, Forsberg said.