County engineer outlines 2nd Street reconstruction in Proctor and warns town may lose quiet zone without upgrades

St. Louis County engineering staff presented preliminary plans to rebuild 2nd Street in Proctor, laying out a work area from 5th Street to Highway 2 that would remove existing curb, pavement and sidewalks and reconstruct the street with two 11-foot travel lanes, 9-foot parking lanes and 8-foot sidewalks on both sides.

The county engineer said the project will be funded by St. Louis County while city utilities under the roadway mean the city must replace a few water valves before construction. "So the scope of this project is gonna be basically to take everything off the top of the road. We're gonna take the curb off, the pavement off, the sidewalk off," the county engineer said, describing a rebuild that preserves current curb lines because no major underground work is planned.

Why it matters: Jess Rich, Proctor city administrator, told attendees that Federal Railroad Administration quiet-zone requirements have changed since the community first established a quiet zone and the town's crossing no longer meets the FRA's final-rule criteria. "If we…