And the pressure is on to remove the curve in Highway 104 between Atkinson Road and West Townsend Road because it is a primary route to Wisconsin Farm Technology Days in Green County next month.

The project is scheduled to be done Sept. 7. Wisconsin Farm Technology Days run Sept. 18-20.

"We're still hoping to finish on schedule-believe it or not-with all the wet weather we've had," said Todd Matheson, project development supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

Paving is set for next week Tuesday or Wednesday, with marking and sign placement to follow for the road's scheduled opening that Friday, he said.

"We need cooperation from the weather," he said. "We need to get a lot done in a short amount of time, but it's still possible to get it done."

Once the highway is open, crews still will work off the road cleaning up the site.

The highway runs in a straight north-south line marking the county lines, except for the single substandard curve that's been blamed for many accidents. Drivers are now detoured around the project using County B and highways 213 and 59.

About 90 percent of the project, which started June 21, has involved cutting a path through a bluff that borders the curve. Workers had to blast the top 15 to 20 feet of the bluff because the upper layers of rock were actually harder than the lower layers, Matheson said.

Moving down into the softer sandstone required only bulldozers and backhoes, he said. The dozers use a big blade on the back to rip the rock apart, he said.
Backhoes then excavate the material, which mostly is being dumped on an adjacent farmer's field, he said. Trucks are also hauling material to a Brodhead subdivision, a Green County landfill and the site of a biodiesel plant in Evansville, he said.

"The contractor has been doing everything within their power to get this thing done," Matheson said of Hoffman Construction of Black River Falls. "They're going above and beyond to get things done."

Work to eliminate the hilly curve on Highway 104 north of Brodhead between County B and Townsend Road is nearly done. Officials hope to have the project completed by Sept. 7.
Al Hoch/Gazette Staff