Rolling closures begin on Duluth's Fourth Street for lead pipe work
Rolling closures started on Fourth Street today, rerouting traffic for about a month as Duluth replaces lead service lines in two-block segments.
Traffic on Fourth Street began shifting today as the City of Duluth started rolling closures between Seventh Avenue East and 19th Avenue East for lead water service replacement work.
Contractors will move through the corridor in two-block segments from east to west, a setup city officials say is meant to give crews enough room to finish the work safely and efficiently. The closures are expected to last about a month, and the city warned that on-street residential parking will be disrupted throughout the project. Motorists are being urged to use posted detours or find another route if possible.
Westbound drivers are being sent from Fourth Street to 19th Avenue East, then to Third Street and Sixth Avenue East before returning to Fourth. Eastbound traffic is being diverted from Fourth to Sixth Avenue East, then to Second Street and 19th Avenue East before reconnecting with the road. The city’s notice, issued May 1 by Public Information Officer Kelli Latuska, said the phased approach was necessary to keep the corridor open enough for work while limiting the scope of each closure.
The short-term disruption carries a longer-term public health benefit. Duluth says lead service line replacement projects can include lead, galvanized-requiring-replacement and suspected lead services, and that both the public and private portions of a line may be replaced if either contains lead. Planned replacements are done at no cost to property owners, with funding coming from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the State of Minnesota through the Minnesota Public Facilities Authority.
The city says residents in planned project areas are typically notified about a year in advance by mail, email, phone calls and door knocks. It also offers a free water pitcher filter program for households at properties identified or suspected to have a lead or galvanized line, part of a broader effort to reduce exposure while the city updates its inventory of service lines across the water system.
The Fourth Street work sits inside a larger 2026 public works schedule that also lists a 4th Street Water Main and Road Replacement project from Mesaba Avenue to 6th Avenue East. For Duluth’s utility operations division, which oversees nearly 2,000 miles of mains, the closures are one more visible sign of an infrastructure system being repaired street by street.
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