US 51 (Tower Road to Exchange Street)

Dane County

Schedule

Construction begins: April 1, 2026

Anticipated completion: November 13, 2026

 

Traffic impacts

US 51 will remain open to traffic with shoulder closures

 

Project update

Crews have continued to make good progress over the last week. Most of the concrete work is complete for this stage and contractors are getting ready to switch to the final stage. Below is this week’s update.

  • Remainder of this week: Crews are in today working on grading for the shoulders, transition areas at either end of the project, and the connection at Tower Rd. Crews will be in to start installing signs, landscape completed areas, and the remainder of the asphalt pavement will be installed.
  • Weekend work: Crews are anticipated to be onsite placing aggregate shoulders, installing pavement marking and working on misc grading items getting ready to open Tower Rd back up.
  • Week of October 26th – The project will switch to our final stage, stage 4, Monday morning. Crews will start to work on completing the rest of the roundabouts and outside shoulders in the northbound lanes.
    • Tower Rd will open back up to traffic Monday morning sometime after 9 am. With this opening, the roundabouts will be operational at this point. Please use caution as drivers get used to the new intersection.
    • USH 51 will be a single lane in each direction while the crews finish up constructing the roundabouts.
    • There will be intermittent closures of left turns at both the Exchange St and Tower Rd roundabouts. These will be limited to be between the hours of 9 am to 3 am. This is so that construction vehicles have access to construct the remaining halves of the roundabouts.

Stage 3 & 4 Notes:

Exchange St is open to right in – right out movements only for the remainder of the week. With the switch to stage 4 Monday, all turning movements will be permitted, with the exception noted above during off peak travel hours.

Adjacent Projects:

As most are probably aware, work has started to the north of Exchange St. That project in not tied to this project from Tower Road to Exchange St. If you are looking to get on the mailing list for the weekly updates on that project, please send an email to USH51Project@strand.com and request to be added to their mailing list.

They are anticipating closing USH 51 at the Yahara River Bridge around December 1st. 2026 to replace the bridge. They are anticipating reopening the bridge around early July 2027.

The roundabouts at Tower Rd and Exchange St will be open and operational prior to the closure of the Yahara River Bridge.

USH 51 south of Tower Rd is slated for construction in the spring of 2027. This project will close USH 51 from Tower Rd to the CTH B/AB roundabout. The CTH B/AB roundabout will remain open and operational during that project closure. There is no mailing list yet for this project and this project has not been advertised for construction yet. There is information on the project on WisDOT’s website: https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/projects/by-region/sw/us51-danecounty/Rural.aspx#exhibits