Highway 53 between Eveleth and Virginia is being rerouted because United Taconite needs to get at the minerals beneath it.
It’s a massive project documented this week by a quadcopter.
“Sure, the mine that required the major state highway to be rerouted, United Taconite, is still idled,” Aaron J. Brown at Minnesota Brown, writes today. “And yes, this project involves snaking a new road around a man-made mountain, constructing the state’s tallest bridge across a mine pit, and shelling out more than $200 million from the state coffers in the process.
“Those are higher order problems. In terms of engineering, this thing is stunning. Construction is ahead of schedule,” he writes.