Engineering and other preliminary work has been completed.
Monmouth City Administrator Lew Steinbrecher says that means construction will officially begin on roads in and around the city’s public square, along with the reducing of lanes of traffic around the square from two to one, starting in June.
“We’re going to start tapering two lanes into one lane,” said Steinbrecher. “By the time you hit the 100 block on the four entranceways – that’s East and West Broadway, and North and South Main Street – there will only be one lane of traffic in each direction coming in and going out of the Public Square.”
Steinbrecher tells WGIL the whole move should make visiting downtown Monmouth better and safer.
“This will be a new design, although it maintains the circle and the entranceways, but it really slows down the traffic,” said Steinbrecher, to the benefit of pedestrians coming downtown to shop, visit the library, and doing other things.
Steinbrecher says parallel parking lanes in parts of those areas will also be converted to diagonal lanes, and he believes that will result in more parking being available.
Work should substantially be complete by the end of the year, with some landscaping and planting work maybe stretching in to next spring. Steinbrecher says there may be some disruption for a time, especially when the Maple City Cruise Night is going to be held, but it should be manageable.
The beginning of construction is contingent on the City Council approving bids for the estimated $3.7 million worth of work at a meeting later in the month. Of that, the vast majority – $3 million – will be paid for by the Illinois Department of Transportation. The rest will come from the city.
Aesthetic work is also planned as part of the project.
