Bridge repairs nearing completion

By Gary Scott on April 27, 2017 at 10:04am

Repairs to the town brook bridge on Lincoln Avenue are nearing completion.

Construction crews began working on the bridge over a week ago with the goal of completing work before May 1st, when crews from the Illinois Department of Transportation will start milling and paving Morton Avenue, and it appears as though they’ll meet that deadline.

Project Manager and Vice President of Hutchison Engineering Jim Burke explains why the repairs were needed.

“There had been some scour develop erosion underneath the bridge at the back, near the piling. Last year, we discovered that that scour, particularly on the south side, was developing at an accelerated rate. We had involved IDOT and sent them a notification of what was going on. This spring, with the improvements on Morton Avenue, the Department of Transportation had planned to mill and resurface Lincoln Avenue back to the limits of that bridge,” says Burke.

Burke says Hutchison and the City of Jacksonville decided to do an emergency repair rather than a minor one, and says that work on the bridge is actually ahead of schedule.

Local drivers can expect lane closures on Morton starting Monday.