Oak Street Closure

 Oak Street and the sidewalks near the tracks will close next week from the 18th through the 22 to allow for repairs to the tracks.Access to the parking lots on either side will not be affected. According to the press release, there are no repairs scheduled to the street, just to the tracks

Starting Monday, May 18 through Friday, May 22, Oak Street and the sidewalks will be closed on either side of the railroad tracks for railroad repairs.  

The closure will not impact access to the parking lots for businesses in the area.  

South 51 Closed

South 51/ S. University Ave will close for 24 hours for sewer repairs, from 5 am. March 28 to 5 a.m. March 29th between Walnut and Mill. Side streets crossing University will remain open but drivers will not be able to turn south on 51.

Repaving

 Gov. Pritzker was in the city this week, announcing among other things, the awarding of a $2 million grant to resurface streets in the Arbor district. The area covered includes:  West College Street from South Forest to South University avenues; West Cherry Street from South Oakland to South Illinois avenues; and Poplar Street from West Mill to West Oak streets

I really hope the city can then come up with money to resurface the section of Poplar between Oak and Sycamore as that stretch of street is in pretty rough shape. Not to the point that someone driving on it will blow out a time but still bad.

Minor Vandalism

 Someone had rendered a good part of the bike repair station on N. Springer, in the closed Boys and Girls Club parking lot, useless. Two of the repair tools have been taken and the air hose cut off near the base, rendering the pump useless. Tools can probably be replaced pretty easily but the hose will take more work and expense. I am not sure that is a good location for the station any more. When there were lots of kids on bikes in the area, it likely got a lot of use. Now however, the area does not see much traffic and, unless the Boys and Girls Club reopens, moving it to a new location might be a good idea

East Walnut Crossing Repair

 Repairs on the railroad crossing on East Walnut street are expected to get completed by 6 p.m. June 9th

Then the East Main crossing will close for repairs on Monday at 8 a.m. and remain closed until 6 p.m. on the 16th.

Detour takes drivers to the north side of the Square to cross the tracks on East Jackson. However, I have found a much shorter wait by crossing the tracks at East College as most of the traffic takes the Jackson Street detour.

Tower Road

 City has finished work on Tower Road. The patching is similar to that done on Giant City Road a couple of years ago, with the area containg the potholes removed, filled in and leveled, making the street much more tire friendly. The city is now working on Pleasent Hill Road east of Highway 51, the stretch from 51 over to Lewis Lane.

Tower Road

 Work started on the repairs to Tower Road this week. the north end was limited to local access only for a couple of days but it appears traffic is moving more freely along the street now. Next week may block off access at the south end of the street.

Tower Road

 Looks as if Tower Road repair work will start tomorrow and wrap up early to middle of May. Hopefully, the city can patch some of the potholes on the hill on Chatauqua as they are deep enough to cause cars to swerve around.

Nighttime Work

 IDOT or the city, I am not sure which, will start road repairs on HWY 13 Westbound tonight until I am not sure. Looks as if the work starts out by University Mall and extends west toward downtown

I am happy to see work getting done on the streets as they took quite a beating over the winter. The city spent time repairing North Oakland but the section repaired is still pretty rough and needs more work to smooth it to a level similar to the rest of the street.

Highway 127

 Looks as if IDOT is starting work on repairing Hwy 127 south of Alto Pass. Several earthmoving vehicles there as well as 3-4 IDOT vehicles. I think it has been about 2 years since the hillside collapsed taking the highway along with it. Glad to see they are starting work on repairing it

Resurfacing

 Rather interesting to see the resurfacing on Walnut street stripping the asphalt down to the brick about 6 inches down but still there are serviceable.  Carbondale still has a short stretch of brick street running along the north side of city hall that seems to need far less repair than the asphalt paved streets in town do. I did ask a member of the public works department once about replacing the asphalt with brick and was told that the asphalt stands up better to the amount of traffic the main streets in town get and is far cheaper to replace than replacing bricked streets would be.

Rail Crossing Repairs

Just a note that the railroad crossing on Walnut just east of Illinois is undergoing repairs today and tomorrow. Eastbound traffic on Walnut rerouted north on Illinois to the Jackson Street crossing.

Street Repair

Impressed with the city's response rate to pothole reports via See Click Fix. I reported one at the corner of Main and University on Thursday afternoon and the city had patched it by the end of the business day on Friday. Good patching job too. If  you didn't know a hole had been there, with a quick glance you would never know it had been there.

Water Main Repair

Water main break along West Almond Street meant these Carbondale maintenance workers were digging pipes up in 10 degree weather this morning. Certainly appreciate their work but also glad it was them and not me.

Street Closure

 Just a heads up from the city.  Cedarview will be closed this Monday for work on the water mains:

Due to water main construction, Cedarview Street (between East Walnut and Lynda Street) will be closed to traffic on Monday, January 12, 2015 from 8:00 A.M. until 5:00 P.M.

The City apologizes for any inconvenience that this closure may cause and urges all vehicular traffic to use alternate routes during this time period.

West Sycamore Repairs

Got curious about the repairs on West Sycamore so stopped by the Public Works offices at City Hall.  it appears that the contractor hired to perform the repairs on water mains underneath the street asked for permission to delay work on West Sycamore as he was running out of "working days" on another project.

The city granted permission for the delay but has no idea when the contractor will complete the other project and return to work on West Sycamore.  Best guess is before the end of the year.

Street Work

In case you were wondering what has been going on with the street construction on West 13 at night, IDOT is cutting out patches of distressed asphalt/concrete and replacing them.  Getting it done pretty quickly too.

Building Repairs

Noticed repair work earlier this week on the crumbling facade of the old K&M Copies building at 219 West Main St.  Cheatam Masonry did some extensive rebuilding on the front corner of the building, the bricks of which has started to bow outward from age.  The top of the back end of the building still needs quite a bit of repair, at least as far as my inexperienced eyes can tell, since it look like several bricks have separated from the facade up there.

Sidewalk Repairs

 It appears, based on the amount of spray painted markings appearing on sidewalks around town that we can expect to see significant work on repairing said sidewalks in the near future.