Laura Baenen, communications manager for the Central Corridor LRT project, said Monday that construction work on the Minneapolis-St. But it is an indicator of progress on a project that has proved a massive short-term headache for businesses in an area that is expected to reap long-term economic gain once trains start running in 2014. With the Metropolitan Council estimating the Central Corridor construction at 32 percent complete, the winter reopening of University Avenue hardly puts the finish line in sight. Winter will start with traffic flowing over four paved lanes on University Avenue, and with cars, trucks, and buses rolling almost freely on the Washington Avenue bridge and in downtown St. Over the next two weeks, Central Corridor contractors Ames/McCrossan Joint Venture and Walsh Construction will finish the 2011 schedule of heavy construction on of the 11-mile Central Corridor LRT line. “Well, we’re excited about having our road access back,” said Steve Bernick, the owner and manager of Milbern Clothing Company, a men’s clothing retailer near Snelling Avenue on University Avenue. With deep ground frost less than a month away, contractors are making their last big digs of the year and paving lanes to ready them for cars and snowplows.Īfter a stressful year of staying open in a construction zone, University Avenue merchants are gearing up for what they hope will be a fairly normal holiday sales season.

It’s been the better part of a year since four lanes of traffic flowed through the light-rail transit (LRT) construction zone on University Avenue. excavators work near Fairview Avenue on Sunday as heavy construction on the Central Corridor LRT line enters its final month in 2011.

Central corridor project office