Morton Avenue lanes scheduled to open up at start of July

By Gary Scott on June 19, 2017 at 8:57am

Lanes on Morton Avenue should start opening back up over the next few weeks.

Crews from the Illinois Department of Transportation have been milling and paving lanes up and down Jacksonville’s busiest street from County Market out beyond Hardin over the past several weeks.

WLDS/WEAI News caught up with Senior Resident Engineer Kiley Gwaltney, who’s been overseeing the project.

Gwaltney explains what the crews have done so far and where the project currently stands.

“Right now, we finished paving the surface on the main lines, and we’re working on paving the side roads and entrances at the moment and we’ll be doing that for the next week or so. The signalized intersections are all up and running now, and we’re working on the removal of the temporary signals right now,” says Gwaltney.

Gwaltney says he hopes to have some of the major work done by the time Fourth of July rolls around.

“Everything’s on the same schedule right now. We hope to have all the traffic controls down and off the road by July 1st. There may be daytime-only type closures after that, but for the most part we’re hoping to have all five lanes open and paving portions complete by the Fourth of July,” Gwaltney explains.

Aside from the actual roadways, Gwaltney says there are some sidewalk projects and cleaning up to do. He did mention that his crews have been fortunate when it comes to weather, and that they hope to finalize the project with seeding and sodding once temperatures start to cool down.