Black Hills photographer Paul Horsted is worried the South Dakota Department of Transportation’s proposed renovation of U.S. Highway 85 from Cheyenne Crossing to the Wyoming border could degrade the scenery:
“It’s hard to define the character of the Black Hills, but you kind of know it when you see it,” said Paul Horsted, a renowned nature and landscape photographer from Custer who is opposed to the current plans to redo U.S. 85. “The scenery and the stream on one side of the road and the cliffs on the other side – there’s nothing that can match that.”
Horsted said he and others are worried that the DOT could take the same approach to rebuilding U.S. 85 as it has with the ongoing project to reconstruct U.S. 385, another scenic road through the Black Hills.
That three-year, $72 million project that will conclude in 2027 is bringing wider lanes, extended road shoulders and fewer curves to the north-south highway between Deadwood and Hill City. To improve safety, the DOT has made more room for the highway by clearing trees, blasting rock and scraping away ridges.
…”None of us are against safety measures, but my question is whether the only answer to make a road safer is to widen it,” Horsted told News Watch.
Horsted, whose latest project “South Dakota Yesterday & Today” contains modern photos of historic sites across the state, suggested the DOT could make U.S. 85 safer by adding a shoulder on only one side or lowering speed limits.
“I understand they need to resurface it and make it drivable, but please try to do with a sense of what the Black Hills are all about,” he said. “We’re asking the DOT to do the minimum necessary to build a reasonably safe road that maintains the scenic and ecological aspects of this beautiful Black Hills highway” [Bart Pfankuch, “Opposition Arises to Rebuild of US 85 Through the Black Hills,” South Dakota News Watch, 2026.06.29].
SDDOT recently extended the public comment period on the U.S. 85 reconstuction project to September 4. Interested parties may send their comments to road design engineering supervisor Mark Malone, SDDOT, 700 E Broadway Ave., Pierre, SD 57501, Mark.Malone@state.sd.us.
According to the DOT’s June 4 public presentation in Deadwood, the average weighted crash rate on this stretch of U.S. 85 is increasing while the statewide crash rate is decreasing. DOT notes that similar curve reconstruction up the road on U.S. 14 east of Cheyenne Crossing in 2019–2020 has reduced crashes from 2.6 per year to 0.5.
But per Horsted’s concern, do we really need to bulldoze more of the trees and hills and creek that make travelers go wow!, or might we make the road southwest of Cheyenne Crossing safer the same way we keep Spearfish Canyon safe to the north, simply by lowering the speed limit?