Nick Smith | Williston Herald Bob Shannon with KLJ presents updated findings of the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway corridor study to residents and area leaders Thursday afternoon in Williston. Thursday's meeting was a public input meeting on the study meant to outline the potential short and long term needs of the corridor.
About 20 people attended the meeting to discuss the data gathered in the last year on the 188 mile stretch of the expressway that runs through North Dakota.
Bob Shannon of KLJ is project manager for the study and was one of several officials leading the study on hand to discuss the results and answer questions.
He said the study was "to prepare a Corridor Master Plan that provides necessary information for the Department of Transportation to reach a consensus on appropriate corridor improvements."
Shannon said the study's scoping package was distributed to 215 agencies and interested parties. Of these, they received 26 responses.
Suggested improvements included widening shoulders, adding passing lanes and requests to upgrade to either a "Super 2" roadway or to four-lane it.
"We had a suggestion to divide the corridor and put trucks on one side and other vehicles on the other side," said Shannon.
Steve Grabill with Ulteig Engineers told the audience that to project the future needs "there's a lot of trends you have to look at."
Grabill said these include population and industries such as agriculture, manufacturing and energy. He said traffic relating to energy is more difficult to project.
Grabill said the majority of oil-related traffic is in the northwest part of the state and becomes much higher than anywhere else in the study area north of Watford City.
He said their 2008 numbers indicate approximately 2,100 vehicles are on the corridor each day, with 470, or 22 percent, of them being trucks.
Based on their projections, if the oil boom continues without faltering, traffic could be approximately 3,515 vehicles per day, with 1,676, or 48 percent, being trucks.
"One in four is truck traffic. If the oil boom goes as projected, one out of every two vehicles would be a truck," said Grabill.
Williston Public Works Director Monte Meiers said the traffic projections are going to be extremely important. He added that he wished the study were further along already due to the rapidly changing conditions.
Meiers said in 2008 it was taking about 1 million gallons of water to frack a well.
"Now it's 4 million per well. That's going to impact us a lot," said Meiers.
Mayor Ward Koeser said the impact of trucking due to agriculture needs to be taken into account as well. He said that in recent years an estimated 2 million more acres are being used in the state, due to an increase in pulse crops.He said that a recent estimate of an additional 1 million acres could be utilized in the coming years "as there is an increased number of farmers planting pulse crops."
Jack Olson said these were important considerations when it comes to future infrastructure planning.
"The question is how much infrastructure and how quick so we don't underinvest or overinvest?" said Olson.
To view the draft corridor study, visit www.trexpressway.com.
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