County plan to update deteriorating roads

By Anna Jauhola
Six major road projects will be completed this year on Kittson County roads, according to the highway department’s long-range road program. The rest of the projects are technically fluid. During the commissioners’ workshop on Tuesday, June 3, the people concerned about the road plan were all from the Caribou area of the county.
County Engineer Arthur Kukowski said the highway department maintains 250.2 miles of bituminous paved roads. Of those, 170 miles were built between 1988 and 2004 because bituminous cost only $23 per ton.
“Right now, we have almost 93 miles of roads that are between 21 and 37 years old. Another 28.9 miles are coming into that range in the next nine years,” Kukowski said. “So almost 100 miles is getting close to really needing attention.”
The goal is to get those miles of road down to 220 miles of the roads at 20 years or younger. Then there will only be 30 miles of roads between 21 and 25 years old. Much of this depends on funding. For 2025, Kittson County is allotted $3,164,954 for its regular county state aid highway (CSAH) construction; $301,009 for CSAH municipal construction; $2,109,968 for CSAH maintenance; and $200,673 for CSAH municipal maintenance.
“So we take these numbers and hopefully that’s projected out in the future and we get that same amount,” Kukowski said. “We don’t see any reason to have anything cut from that, but it’s also very rare that much gets added to that over time. We’re doing what we can with what we have.”
The dozen people at the meeting who either reside in or near Caribou Township, or own property there, were most concerned with what they see as a lack of construction and maintenance on roads east of Highway 59.
The proposed program shows six projects in that area, two of which are set for this year, one in 2026, four in 2027, one in 2028 and one in 2029. The one they are most concerned with is CSAH 4, which winds its way from Lancaster, through Poppleton, McKinley and Caribou townships. A nearly 11-mile stretch of the paved portion of CSAH 4 is set for a full-depth reclamation mill and overlay in 2028.
“It has exceeded its lifespan, we will concede that,” said Assistant County Engineer Keith Klegstad. “But it is also in a condition that it’s to the point it needs work. And we have it scheduled for 2028. It’s the earliest we could get federal funding for that stretch of road.”
CSAH 4 is designated as a major collector road, which makes it eligible for federal funding, Klegstad said. In 2027, the county plans to replace three culverts along that road to prepare for the 2028 reconstruction. The east-west stretch of CSAH 4 in McKinley Township is the oldest paved road in the county, having first been paved in 1988. The curves in the road and the north-south portion is between 26 and 30 years old, according to the county’s map.
The crowd pointed out several times that the county had promised to pave the gravel portion of CSAH 4 in the 1960s, but instead only built it up to gravel in 2003, 2004 and 2011. Roland Larter, who grew up in the Caribou area and still owns land there, said, “We get the least possible, we get it last, or we get nothing. That’s our three alternatives – least, last or nothing.”
Klegstad and Kukowski both strongly disagreed, noting the county can only do what budgets allow and what Minnesota State Aid allows them to do.
Building roads, whether paved or gravel, relies heavily on traffic counts. Klegstad said CSAH 4’s paved section saw 148 cars a day in 2023, and the gravel section recorded 23 cars a day.
“But it’s still humans. It’s taxpayers,” said Duane Frislie, who lives in Caribou, to which Klegstad agreed. He noted the gravel road was built to a 28-foot wide gravel base to make it stable, but not the width needed to later pave it. Larter said he measured the road in several places and it’s 32 feet wide. Klegstad countered the original plans for the road state it is a 28-foot wide road, however it is likely that over time traffic has widened the road. He also said the road is regularly maintained year-round, so the area doesn’t get nothing.
Larter also asked why other paved roads in the county are only 28 feet wide. Klegstad said those are reconditioned roads, and those meet different specifications from MnDOT than new construction.
David Weleski, another Caribou resident, asked whether large trucks count as more traffic because of the weight. Unfortunately, they do not, but the truck traffic and weights are factored in when designing a road.
When the portion of CSAH 4 is repaved, it will also have paved shoulders, which adds another 1 ½ feet on each side of the road, Klegstad said.
To get the funding for any projects in the county, the highway department has to follow rules set by the state. In this case, traffic counts are a huge deciding factor. Therefore, the 2025 construction schedule also calls for bituminous overlay along CSAH 7 east of Kennedy to the curve, and along CSAH 19 from CSAH 10 to Highway 11. These are highly used roads with car counts of 400 a day.
“When you get more use and more wear, you get more breakdown of the bituminous,” Kukowski said. “This is the best way we can keep the roads in a safe and operable manner.”
Cody Schmalz, who lives in Caribou, was one who spoke for keeping CSAH 4 as a gravel road. He said not many cars go by his place just 2 miles from the Canadian border each day.
Although all the commissioners attended the workshop, it was not an official meeting so there was no action taken.