Highway 100 work picking up steam, but end nowhere in sight

For decades state and city transportation planners have envisioned Highway 100 paralleling Interstate 229 and creating another connection between Interstate 90 to Interstate 29. And although the project has been advancing in recent years, the final stretches of the byway are nowhere to be found in the state’s long-term transportation plan budget.

“We’re trying to balance all of our statewide needs with the work that needs to happen to complete Highway 100,” DOT engineer Travis Dressen said.

Right now crews are working on a $14 million stretch of the highway that runs between Maple Street and Rice Street that’s expected to be wrapped up next year. That work started this fall after crews finished a mile-long, $8.9 million portion of Highway 100 from Madison Street to Maple Street. And starting in 2018 the state will tackle the northern most portion of the project tying Highway 100 into I-90. That stretch could cost up to $50 million.

“There’s going to be a new interchange structure – a single point interchange similar to what you see at Madison and 12th Streets in Sioux falls,” Dressen said referring to interchanges found along I-29.

Change orders added $765K to Midco pool costs

The city of Sioux Falls has incrementally tackled portions of Highway 100 within city limits, improving or constructing about six miles from Madison Street to 57th Street along Highway 11, otherwise known as Veterans Parkway.

What hasn’t happened yet and isn’t even in the state’s 2045 long-range transportation plan is the portion of Highway 100 from 57th Street to I-29.

Dressen said it’s not that the final eight miles or so won’t get done in the next 30 years, the money just hasn’t been appropriated into the state’s transportation improvement budget. More immediate needs, he said, will have to be scratched off the to-do list before state planners commit more resources to Highway 100. I-229 improvements are on that list.

“It’s trying to balance the new Highway 100 route with keeping up with our infrastructure needs,” he said.

In the meantime, Sioux Falls Public Works Director Mark Cotter said the city is preparing to work in concert with the state to see the northern portion of Highway 100 is finished on time. That means being ready to extend utilities, build pedestrian and vehicle underpasses and preparing the Highway 100 corridor for future development.

But even some of that work could be years away as well, Cotter said.

“Until development gets out there, there’s no reason to put some of that infrastructure in,” he said.