There are a lot of road-closed-except-to-local-traffic signs out there in the Town of Normal this summer.
It's high season for road projects. The largest is the $17.8 million rebuild of West College Avenue. Phase 1 is near Rivian Motorway just east of U.S. Route 150. Pavement removal has begun, said Normal Public Works Director Ryan Otto.
"You'll see the north half of the road is pretty much gone all the way from U.S. 150, Rivian Motorway to what would be the east gate for Rivian, gate four," said Otto on WGLT's Sound Ideas.
Excavators will be on that stretch for a couple months, requiring traffic changes.
"College Avenue is eastbound only. To get to the Rivian plant, you travel east from 150 into the plant and then afterward you continue east to either Wiley Drive or continue onto White Oak Road," said Otto.
Adelaide Street
Work continues on another project, $1.3 million in improvements on Adelaide Street, from Hovey to College Avenue.
“We’ve removed a good chunk of the curb and gutter and reconstructed it. We’re milling pavement, taking a thin lift of asphalt off the surface," said Otto.
"After that we’ll go through and perform pavement patching in areas that prematurely failed the last time the road was improved, and then finish the project off with new sidewalks in areas as well as a clean lift of asphalt.”
Fort Jesse Road
Traffic disruptions will continue through September on Fort Jesse Road, said Otto. The town is re-signaling at Greenbriar and Landmark drives, a planning process that has taken several years, including traffic studies.
“We had seen accidents creep up,” said Otto. “We’re going to widen some [turning] radii, especially at Greenbriar. It’s a heavy truck corridor and we saw a lot of tracking, where trucks jumped the curb and dragged mud all over. We’re addressing that.”
Currently, Greenbriar is closed at Fort Jesse for installation of a new box culvert. New pavement and sidewalks will follow.
Savannah Green
Weather has hindered work in the Savannah Green subdivision where the town is spending $4.5 million to address roads and alley pavement that failed earlier than expected. There are a couple more streets to do. Otto said the town is focusing on alleys at the moment.
“The last couple of weeks, we’ve been mostly pumping water. We have had intermittent heavy rains that have stalled work. Ironically, the next step is to install drains underneath the alleys,” said Otto.
It is a particularly moist area.
“One of the contributors to pavement deterioration was groundwater. Once the drains are installed, we hope the rains won’t have quite the impact they do now and we’ll be able to install a new asphalt surface on the alleys,” said Otto. “In the alleys we often saw groundwater coming up through the joints in the spring.”
Otto hopes the work will let the new road surfaces last 20-30 years — far longer than the initial construction did.
That is phase one to address Savannah Green. Otto said other work will be budgeted for the future.
Cracks, patches, and potholes, oh my
More general summer road work continues as well.
Crack sealing crews are out, done with town crews and some contractors for larger areas of concrete surface. General street resurfacing funded by state motor fuel tax money will ramp up in the next several weeks. And the town is working to eliminate sidewalk street discharges of residential sump pump outlets.
“In some cases, moisture discharging onto the streets directly contributes to deterioration and poor roads,” said Otto.
The town also is in the second year of a pilot project called "pressure pave." That places a thin layer of asphalt emulsion and rock on top of existing asphalt. It’s supposed to stop oxidation of the asphalt and make the pavement last longer.
Otto said the town was generally pleased with the results of the first year of the test project.
“We noticed some reflective cracking that we would have hoped to not see for another year or so. We’ve reviewed it with the contractor and don’t think that’s really an issue,” he said.
Reflective cracking is when previous cracks in asphalt come through a new layer in the same spots.
Drainage
Drainage improvements at Martin Luther King Park are on the summer list, too, said Otto.
That was one of the areas that experienced flooding in the summer of 2021. Drainage in the Ironwood subdivision also is receiving town attention with storm sewer and culvert replacement.
Planning
On the list of future traffic headaches for motorists is an Illinois Department of Transportation effort to improve Main Street from Olive Street in Bloomington to Gregory Street in Normal. That’s in the planning stages.
“One of the focuses is pedestrian safety. We’re working closely with IDOT to analyze pedestrian crossings, some in the area of Beaufort Street north to College Avenue, particularly at Osage, Hale, and Dale, to determine what should be done there,” said Otto.
He said that is separate from a planned broader campus area traffic study prompted by pedestrian and cyclist fatalities in recent years.
The Main Street project itself will include new curbs and gutters, traffic signals, bike lanes, and road surfaces.
It does not include the campus area pedestrian underpass at the heavily traveled College and Main intersection.
“That project is to be built separately from the Main Street Corridor, but it is in the works, and it will be a full rehabilitation,” said Otto.
