MN-DOT is getting ready for a major rebuild of the so-called “can of worms” interchange on I-35 near downtown Duluth and has two public forums in the port city today (1130am-1230pm, 6-7pm) on project status. Assistant District Engineer Patrick Huston says they’ll eliminate blind merges and two left exits in the interest of safety. He says, “In simple terms, this interchange has the fourth-highest crash rate in the MN-DOT system for interchanges, and I think there’s over 500 interchanges.”
Huston adds many of the bridges in the “can of worms” were built in the late 1960s, can’t carry overweight loads. “On average [annually] there’s a thousand overweight loads that cannot be on the interstate to and from the Port and need to go through city streets,” he says. “It’s going through neighborhoods and it’s slowing shipments.”