Treating roads with deicers during winter storms is essential for ensuring the safety of the traveling public. However, salt runoff can negatively impact the environment. In-ditch salt capture techniques may limit the migration of salt from roads into watersheds.
Continue reading Permeable Barriers for Absorbing Road Salt RunoffTag Archives: MnDOT
CTS Webinar: Infrastructure Materials and Performance
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
noon–1:30 p.m. CDT, Virtual
About the Event
Understanding how infrastructure materials perform over time is critical to making informed design, construction, and maintenance decisions. This webinar will feature two recent University of Minnesota research efforts that examined the real-world performance of commonly used transportation infrastructure materials.
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Strategies to Prevent Joint Separations in Culverts
Culverts are essential components of urban and rural infrastructure that guide and channel water under roads and embankments. The most common failure affecting culverts is joint separation between segments of the concrete pipes. This project examined the predictors and factors that lead to joint separations in culverts to determine practices that will decrease future separations.
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CTS Webinar: EV Infrastructure and Fuel Policy—Understanding the Transportation and Economic Impacts
Thursday, April 23, 2026, 2:00–3:30 pm, Virtual
About the Webinar
Transportation policy and energy markets are evolving rapidly as states explore strategies to reduce emissions and support new fuel technologies. This webinar will examine two current policy areas shaping transportation systems: electric vehicle infrastructure development and low-carbon fuel standards.
Beth Kallestad from MnDOT’s Office of Sustainability and Public Health will provide an overview of Minnesota’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program. Her presentation will discuss how the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and NEVI funding have shaped the development of EV infrastructure in Minnesota, the program’s current status, and what to expect in the next phase of implementation.
Monica Haynes and Neil Wilmot from the University of Minnesota Duluth will highlight a 2025 study that examined the relationship between low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) programs and gasoline prices. They will explore how LCFS programs in other states have affected retail fuel costs and discuss the challenges of predicting the economic impacts of a potential LCFS program in Minnesota.
Through these presentations, webinar attendees will gain insights into how emerging transportation energy policies influence infrastructure planning and economic outcomes.
Speakers
Beth Kallestad is the sustainable transportation planning director with MnDOT’s Office of Sustainability and Public Health. She has a wide range of experience in the environmental field, including in the private, government, academic, and nonprofit sectors. This experience has given her a strong background in the management and implementation of a variety of sustainability planning efforts, public and stakeholder engagement, effective communications, trust building, and collaboration. Beth joined MnDOT in June 2022 and has focused her work on the development and implementation of the EV infrastructure program with federal NEVI funding and supporting MnDOT’s internal fleet transition.
Monica Haynes has served as the director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Minnesota Duluth since 2014, supervising a small team of student researchers and a writer/editor. During her time in this role, the department has completed more than 90 funded research projects on a wide range of topics related to current events, proposed development opportunities, and economic trends. She also serves as adjunct faculty in the Labovitz School of Business and Economics (LSBE), as chair of LSBE’s outreach committee, and on the Duluth Workforce Development Board.
Neil A. Wilmot is an associate professor and head of the Department of Economics and Health Care Management, Labovitz School of Business and Economics, at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He is also an associate of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. Wilmot’s research interests include energy economics and energy commodities, encompassing a wide range of topics including oil and gas markets, renewable energy integration, and energy pricing mechanisms. He has published numerous articles in leading energy economics journals, including Energy Economics, Resource and Energy Economics, and The Energy Journal.
Registration
This webinar is free, but registration is required. Once you have registered, you will receive an email confirmation with a Zoom link. The link should not be shared with others; it is unique to you.
Related Reading
Transitioning to EV Fleets: Best Practices and a Decision Tool | MnDOT Digital Library
Evaluating the Safety Impacts of Select Pedestrian Infrastructure
To enhance pedestrian safety at intersections, transportation agencies may install temporary or permanent infrastructure such as curb extensions or pedestrian refuge islands. While more permanent infrastructure with concrete is generally considered effective, specific details about temporary infrastructure with flexible delineators (or bollards), such as installation, use and safety impact, would be valuable to optimize cost-effectiveness. This project evaluated both temporary and permanent pedestrian infrastructure at crossing sites to measure the effects on pedestrian safety and driver behavior.
Continue reading Evaluating the Safety Impacts of Select Pedestrian Infrastructure
Assessing Recycled Pavement for Use in Road Design
Cold recycling road pavement materials into new road construction is a cost-effective and sustainable practice. However, the properties of these materials must be characterized to adequately design pavement structures. This project developed a framework and tool for transportation agencies to estimate the key material properties of cold recycled materials incorporated into road designs.
Continue reading Assessing Recycled Pavement for Use in Road Design
Limiting Pavement Damage from Detours
Detours for highway construction projects direct heavy freight vehicles onto local roads that were not designed to accommodate the frequency of heavy loads. Detours to these local roads often accelerate pavement deterioration that shortens their service life and requires additional repair. This project examined the structural and economic impacts of detours on local roads to develop a framework for optimizing detour routes that limit pavement damage while maintaining traffic mobility.
Continue reading Limiting Pavement Damage from Detours
TRB Webinar: Improving Mobility in Rural and Tribal Communities
February 25, 2025, 10-11 AM CST
TRB is offering a free webinar tomorrow on rural mobility, which has been a focus of a number of MnDOT studies in the last few years. For a review of research on rural mobility in Minnesota, see the following lists of completed and active projects. To register for the webinar, follow the link above.
Continue reading TRB Webinar: Improving Mobility in Rural and Tribal Communities
Using Onboard Vehicle Data to Assess Pavement Quality
Many modern vehicles continuously track location and performance data such as speed and acceleration. Collecting large amounts of this data to use in machine learning models has many potential applications, including aggregating and evaluating road pavement conditions. This project investigated the feasibility of using large amounts of onboard data from electric vehicles to monitor and assess pavement conditions comprehensively and cost-effectively across a large network.
Continue reading Using Onboard Vehicle Data to Assess Pavement Quality
New Project: Engineering Post-Construction Soil Composition to Support Resilient Stormwater Management
Post-construction soils can produce much higher stormwater runoff rates than pre-construction or typical vegetated soils. Poor soil conditions can hinder the establishment of vegetation and carry large volumes of runoff, sediment, and nutrient loads to local waters. Organic soil amendments (composts) may support post-construction vegetative growth by boosting soil structure, nutrient availability, and water holding capacity.
This research aims to define targeted pre-construction soil health baselines, determine optimized design and field implementation inputs that return soils to baseline health indices using organic amendments, and identify how these inputs can benefit transportation requirements and resilient stormwater treatment.
The results may facilitate the quantification of benefits provided through soil health restoration and the development of implementable guidance for roadside soil health restoration techniques.
“This research project will help us understand how implementing soil health practices can improve the performance of roadside vegetation establishment resulting in MnDOT being able to close out construction contracts and stormwater permits sooner,” said Warren Tuel, Natural Resources Program Coordinator with MnDOT’s Office of Environmental Stewardship. “There are also significant potential stormwater benefits of soil health practices including increased infiltration, improved treatment of pollutants present in highway stormwater runoff. The improved management of stormwater will result in improved water quality of runoff from MnDOT highway systems resulting in greater protection of the many water resources here in Minnesota.”
The objectives are:
- Evaluate resilience to water availability through organic amendment (e.g., compost) addition through greenhouse stormwater experiments
- Optimize amendment loadings based on resilience
- Develop a “recipe” for improving the health of poor soils based on soil health measurements, by amending the soil with compost or other organics
Project Details
- Start Date: 05/16/2025
- Estimated Completion Date: 06/30/2027
- Funding: MnDOT
- Principal Investigator: Bora Cetin
- Co-Principal Investigators: Angela Farina
- Technical Liaison: Warren Tuel
Details of the research study work plan and timeline are subject to change.
To receive email updates about this project, visit MnDOT’s Office of Research & Innovation to subscribe.
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