RAPID CITY - It will take four years and another $60 million, but the four-lane Heartland Expressway between Rapid City and the Nebraska state line will be completed in 2011, according the latest five-year plan from the South Dakota Department of Transportation.
It's been a long road: The first leg of the Heartland was completed in 1999.
That was the good news at the DOT meeting to discuss the agency's new, five-year road-work plan - dubbed the State Transportation Improvement Program, or STIP. Thursday's meeting drew 107 people from as far away as Perkins and Shannon counties.
The bad news is that a number of other projects, including work on U.S. Highway 85 through Belle Fourche, had to be pushed back another year.
Darin Bergquist, acting secretary of the South Dakota Department of Transportation, blamed the precarious nature of highway funding. Flat state revenue, uncertain federal funding and soaring materials costs have put DOT planners on the defensive.
"We're in a preservation mode," Bergquist told the crowd.
He said the federal highway trust fund is expected to run out of money by 2009 if nothing is changed. And because 70 percent of South Dakota's highway spending is federal dollars, that would be devastating to the state, he said.
Materials costs - asphalt tar, for instance, is 53 percent more expensive than it was in 2005 - have cut the value of South Dakota's fuel-tax revenue to about half what it was in 1999, he said.
The Belle Fourche project, a $6.4 million program of grading, bridge work, curb-and-gutter, streetlights and paving of Highway 85 through town, is scheduled for 2010. Last year, the project was on the 2009 list.
Belle Fourche Mayor Dave Schneider pointed out at Thursday's meeting that the project was once slated for 2007. With the uncertain funding picture, Schneider said, he fears it will be pushed back even further. He urged the DOT to put the Belle Fourche project back on the 2009 list in its final STIP.
Rapid City Mayor Alan Hanks made a similar pitch for the project to rebuild Catron Boulevard between S.D. Highway 79 and U.S. Highway 16. Originally scheduled for 2008, it's been moved back to 2012. Hanks told the DOT officials that Catron Boulevard is an increasingly important link along the fast-growing southern edge of Rapid City.
A large delegation from Perkins County urged the DOT to fund improvements to S.D. Highway 20, the main east-west road in the northwest corner of the state. And Jimmy Sam, representing the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said U.S. Highway 18 badly needs more left-turn lanes at intersections. He said road between Oglala and Pine Ridge is a "death trap."
Another ongoing project that has received a lot of highway money in recent years - Interstate 90 and its service roads in the Rapid City-Sturgis corridor - is slated to get another $35 million over the next five years, according to the current STIP plan.
One reason the Heartland Expressway has remained a priority is that its funding was specifically earmarked by Congress. It exists somewhat outside the normal give-and-take of highway priorities.
Similarly, dollars reserved for urban road systems will be used to fund two major Rapid City streets that will skirt new shopping centers east of town.
The Rushmore Crossing project is under construction south of the interstate between La Crosse and East North Street. Next year, the city will build a five-lane extension of East Anamosa Street between La Crosse and East North.
North of the interstate, a Cabela's-anchored shopping center and possibly another mall called The Meadows are in the works. And in 2008, the city will build a five-lane extension of Mall Drive between La Crosse and East North Street.
Another Rapid City project is already in the fiscal 2007 budget, said Todd Seaman, DOT's region engineer for Rapid City. He said bids will be let this fall for a project to widen S.D. Highway 44 between Longview Road and Rapid City Regional Airport.
The road will become a four-lane, divided highway similar to the Southeast Connector. However, the median will be grass, not concrete. The project will be done by the fall of 2008.
Contact Dan Daly at 394-8421 or dan.daly@rapidcityjournal.com
