Highway 371 Detour Between Backus And Hackensack Ends

Motorists traveling between Hackensack and Backus on Highway 371 will be glad to know that the detour that had added over 20 miles to the commute has opened back up to drivers.

The construction project began Labor Day weekend with the detour beginning September 4. The detour rerouted drivers along County Road 40, Highway 64, and Highway 87 and added 23 miles to the trip. The detour ended on Tuesday and Highway 371 between the two cities was opened to traffic. The project reconstructed the road’s pavement and replaced underground piping which will increase the life of the road.

Construction’s been going quite well actually. We were actually ahead of schedule for quite a while. We had hoped to pull the detour a week early and then October’s rains sort of got in the way and pushed it back to where we thought it would anyway on October 16. So the detour was lifted on Tuesday, October 16 but there will still be a few days of lane closures left,” explained J.P. Gillach, Minnesota Department of Transportation District 3 Public Affairs Coordinator. “We still need to get the striping put down.”

All lanes of Highway 371 between Highway 87 and County Road 40 are expected to be open by the end of October.