Citizens will have until May 7 to make their views known on a proposed four-lane highway that could run from Rapid City, S.D. to the Canadian border, passing through Bowman, Amidon and Belfield.
A corridor study on potential finanical and environmental issues, recommended improvements, traffic flow and economic demands are just a few of the items being looked at by Kadrmas, Lee and Jackson of Bismarck for the proposed highway.
The expressway would run along the existing Highway 85.
The study will help determine what the expressway can do economically for the state, said Cal Klewin, Expressway Association director.
"Our mission is to promote the energy and agriculture benefits of trade to our corridor here in North Dakota," he said. "Depending on the data that will be compiled after ( the study) we'll go into phase two and look at the improvements that can made to Highway 85, and will just be based on that entire study."
ADVERTISEMENT
Klewin believes there are misconceptions that the corridor would be completed in one piece.
"This would be done piece by piece over a series of years and decades," Klewin said.
Bob Shannon, project manager for the corridor said comments and views have just started to come in.
"We have no plan," he said. "Right now we're just trying to figure out what are the issues and what the potential traffic projection is and needs and we'll put that together in a report that will kind of frame what is going on out there today."
Getting a report together is expected to take about a year, he added.
The TRE, if completed, would be the northern third of the Great Plains International Trade Corridor, a four-lane highway system that promotes trade and transportation nationally and internationally, supporters say.
Klewin said a series of public meetings will be held in Belfield and Bowman in May, with dates yet to be determined.
For more information on the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway, visit www. Trexpressway.com
