R2014-98 AGREEMENT WITH STATE OF ILLINOIS FOR IMPROVEMENT TO BUSINESS U.S. 51

Home Browse Search

s COUNCIL INFORMATION MEMORANDUM NO. 2014-33 DATE: August 7,2014 TO: Honorable Mayor McElroy and City Council Members FROM: Ryan P.McCrady, City Manager Richard G. Marley, P.E., Public Works Director SUBJECT: Grand Avenue Closure for City Project 2014-08 Decision to Close Grand Avenue to Traffic during Construction. Grand Avenue between Clinton Street and Illinois Street was closed on July 18, 2014 to begin extensive work to rehabilitate the street pavement by milling off the old asphalt surface, constructing base repair patches in the underlying concrete pavement and resurfacing the street. The decision to close the street was made early in the design process because of safety problems that occurred during an earlier reconstruction project at the same location. Closing the road to traffic is clearly safer than attempting to maintain 2-way traffic. In 2006, the same section of Grand Avenue was repaved while keeping the road open to 2-way traffic. Narrow traffic control barricades were used to protect the adjacent excavation and construction work.The road through the underpass is 44 feet wide which resulted in two traffic lanes only 10' wide and virtually no clearance between traffic flow and the adjacent barricades. The normal traffic volume on Grand is about 10,000 vehicles per day. (Some of the normal traffic undoubtedly detoured rather than use the narrow lanes.) As a result traffic devices were constantly being hit and vehicles damaged the exposed concrete base pavement. This is dangerous both to the travelling public and to workers. Keeping the road open to traffic by other means, such as using temporary traffic signals to alternate the flow of traffic was not considered. Based on cost experience gained using temporary traffic signals during the reconstruction of L&A Industrial Drive in 2013, it is estimated that a temporary traffic signal system would have cost an additional$12,000 on Grand with the possible closure of side streets. Temporary traffic signals have a long cycle length which tends to create long lines of traffic waiting to pass through the construction zone. This is not a problem where there is enough length of approach pavement to store vehicles waiting for the green signal. However,on Grand Avenue,the storage length between Illinois Street and Jasper Street is short. The backed up traffic would have created congestion issues at Jasper Street. As a result of this evaluation, City engineering staff determined it best to close Grand Avenue between Clinton and Calhoun during construction. The block between Calhoun Street and Illinois Street was to be closed periodically so that manhole and valve vault lids could be adjusted. Utilities are scattered throughout the road and are too high to allow traffic to return. In addition, the brick pavement is still exposed and curbing needs to be poured. It can't be opened until the hot mix asphalt surface is placed. Page I 1