Construction crews continue work on street projects across Sioux Falls

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - We’re in the heart of orange cone season in South Dakota, and while those road construction projects can be inconvenient, they are a must.

“It’s important to maintain your vehicle, to extend the life, so your car lasts as long as possible, the same things goes for streets,” Principal Engineer for the City of Sioux Falls Brad Ludens said. “You want to do the appropriate maintenance measures at the appropriate time so that the streets last multiple decades.”

Ludens says now is go-time for construction crews across the metro area.

“The city bids out in between 100 and 120 projects every year and about half of those impact streets in some way, form, or fashion, so it’s another big year, and we have projects spread out all over the city,” Ludens said.

The good news, many of this year’s major projects in Sioux Falls are already underway.

“A lot of projects that we started early are right in the middle, and some of them are even close to wrapping up,” Ludens said. “Other ones, like Minnesota Avenue, we started about a month ago, and we’ll push through (until) the end of the construction season.”

But for now, with traffic backed up in areas like the intersection of 57th and Minnesota, Ludens says it is imperative that drivers remain vigilant and stay patient.

“Be paying attention to your surrounding, watch what the other motorists are doing, put your phone down, the text message can wait, the phone call can wait, and just try and give yourself a little extra time,” Ludens said. “If you can leave early, maybe take a little bit different route to work to avoid the construction altogether, those are all things you can do to help decrease the amount of distraction that there is as you’re driving.”

For information about current and upcoming street projects in Sioux Falls, click here.

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