Mount Prospect OKs $8.3 million road program

Mount Prospect residents should expect to see a significant makeover of their roads this summer.

The village board on Tuesday approved a $8.3 million bid from Arrow Road Construction of Mount Prospect for the 2014 street resurfacing program.

This year's program will cover nearly 19 miles of village roadways, including 12 miles of backlog created as the village cut costs in recent years.

Public Works Director Sean Dorsey said the proceeds from the village's recent bond issue for roads, as well as normal street reconstruction funds, will provide the funding.

Motor fuel tax funds will not be used to avoid having to go through the Illinois Department of Transportation for approvals of contracts and plans. One benefit of that, Dorsey said, is that existing motor fuel tax funds can be used for next year's resurfacing program.

Arrow was the lowest bidder for the work, which officials had budgeted $9.7 million to complete. The highest bid was $10.4 million.

Dorsey said the plan is to begin the work later this month and conduct it in "waves" so as to minimize the impact on residents and motorists.

"Our goal is to keep the crews from not going crazy and tearing everything up and leaving it torn up all summer," he said.

"I think that's excellent, because people are going to be driving all over the village and running into these areas," Trustee Steven Polit said.

Trustees said Arrow's bid coming in under budget expectations validates the board's decision to take care of the backlog all at once in hopes of reducing costs.

"If we wait too much longer, we'll be reconstructing streets at a much higher cost than doing what we're going to be doing this year," Trustee Paul Hoefert said.

Dorsey noted that the cost per mile for resurfacing is about $400,000, lower than the anticipated $500,000. For reconstruction, he said, it would be about $1 million per mile.

Trustee A. John Korn reminded residents that crews wouldn't tear up all the streets of a neighborhood at the same time.

"Even though your street may be on the schedule for getting redone, just because they're doing the street east of you or west of you, or both of them, that doesn't mean we forgot about you," he said. "It just means that we have to have someplace to put cars on the street."