The Illinois Department of Transportation on Monday showed off to the public its phase one plans related to improvements to the Main/Center street corridor — from College Avenue in Normal south to Olive Street in downtown Bloomington.
Core elements of the U.S. 51 Business road plan include improvements to traffic signals and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ramps, street corners and crossings. The roadway also will be resurfaced, with some areas requiring pavement replacements.
IDOT project engineer Ryan Carroll said debuting the agency's phase one plans to public view is a way to get different perspectives and potentially improve the project going forward.
“The biggest thing is to let the public know what we’re intending on doing with the project, and then take any comments that people may have and see how we can incorporate that into the project,” said Carroll.
“With that, we will finalize our phase one study. We’ll have an approved phase one report and then we’ll move into phase two, which is actually the finer details of the design work.”
Starting at the north edge of the project, from Beaufort Avenue to College, there are plans for a sidewalk on either side of the road to accommodate pedestrians. Extending south from there, plans include bike lanes.
Former state representative Dan Brady was at the public meeting. He said the bike lanes stand out.
“I think that the bike lanes will be an improvement. When you have people riding along Main Street on a bike, they don't have the protection that the bike lane is going to provide,” said Brady.
Bloomington resident Deborah Johnson agreed, calling the proposed bike lanes “awesome.”
Johnson, a frequent driver in the area, said she supports the preliminary plans and she expects reduced accidents.
“I see that a lot of the traffic from people moving in and out of lanes— this will minimize the amount of movement in the lanes which will help with the traffic flow. We’ve had quite a few accidents on Emerson, we’ve had quite a few accidents on Empire. So this, hopefully, this should help with the flow of traffic and how it goes from one end to the next,” said Johnson.
No speed limit changes are currently in the works.
The state of Illinois awarded $18 million to rehab the 4.7 miles of roadway in its 2019 capital plan.
