A rough stretch of road through the heart of Washington is slated for some long-requested upgrades.
Community leaders and business owners have been calling for improvement to Business Route 24, a state road and the city’s main east-west commercial corridor. In a Facebook post this week, the City of Washington announced an interim project and the beginning of engineering this year for a full reconstruction.
Washington officials directed WCBU to the Illinois Department of Transportation, or IDOT, for additional information.
IDOT Public Information Officer Paul Wappel says there hasn’t been a consultant selected yet for a broad, multi-year reconstruction project. There's no timeline in place for a plan of this scope yet.
“It’s too early to say and it certainly varies on the project,” said Wappel. “How big it is, how small it is and what all is involved. So I couldn’t estimate on that.”
However, the roadmap of the interim mill and overlay project is much clearer.
“It will be on the September 20th letting, that’s this September. We’re hopeful that work will begin in October of this year,” Wappel said. “The asphalt and pavement striping have an estimated completion date of November 30th, so the end of November.”
IDOT also plans on making improvements to ADA pedestrian ramps along the route. Wappel says this third project will take about 50 days and happen sometime in 2025.
Though a full reconstruction of the road is still a ways off, Wappel expects the mill and overlay to help.
“We grind up what’s there and put another layer, a new layer, of asphalt on,” he said. “And that should be really, really be a big improvement.”
When the mill and overlay project starts later this year, Wappel says there will be some traffic changes, including the use of flaggers to direct traffic and lane closures during working hours. Wappel says full details on these changes will be posted closer to the project’s start.
