Missoula Summer Road Work Includes Higgins Avenue

This Monday, June 13, City of Missoula road crews will begin the process of milling and repaving Higgins Avenue from Brooks Street to University Avenue.

KGVO reached out to Brian Hensel, Public Works & Mobility Deputy Director—Streets for details on the upcoming project.

“We will be milling out the asphalt between Brooks and University Street and then paving it back,” began Hensel. “The work will start this Monday and hopefully we will get it done by the week of the 27^th, that is if all goes well weather permitting and we can get all the materials and asphalt.”

Hensel said his crews will do everything possible to keep from interrupting the flow of traffic in the busy area.

“We will be mostly shifting traffic back and forth and working in the vacant travel lanes as we move across the street,” he said. “We may have some short term intermittent detours on a block to block basis, but we will open everything after the end of the work day. We will also be asking the adjacent property owners to refrain from parking in the area during the course of the project.”

Hensel described the actual work to be done starting on June 13.

“What we're doing is taking out all of the poor asphalt we are eliminating the rutting and the potholes along that corridor,” he said. “This is a cooperative effort with MDT (Montana Department of Transportation) and the city. We both identified these four blocks as needing some additional repair and maintenance, and so under our MDT maintenance agreement, we can do these types of projects, and we will be removing the deteriorated asphalt and repaving it curb to curb for those four blocks.”

Hensel was asked how the public can help move the project along with as few delays as possible.

“If people could take alternative routes that would just help reduce the congestion and improve the safety of the employees,” he said. “As I said, we should be able to handle everything by just shifting lanes, however there's a tight spot at Connell where we may have to do a temporary detour just for that block, but I hope to keep the street open the entire time. If we do have to detour it'll just probably be for less than a day.”

For more information and project updates, click here.