Villa Park seeking $27.5 million for street repairs

At meetings held throughout Villa Park on the village's proposed $27.5 million street improvement plan, one question keeps coming up.

It's not "How much will it cost me?" (The answer: $199 a year for the owner of a $250,000 home).

What people really want to know, said Public Works Director Vydas Juskelis, is this:

"Is my street on the list?"

Villa Park is asking voters Feb. 2 to approve the sale of bonds to reconstruct, resurface or patch 54 side streets - roughly one-third of the village's roadways.

A second question asks for an increase in the sales tax, from 7.25 percent to 7.75 percent, to pay for road maintenance.

Whether a street makes the list isn't determined by how bad it looks, but by what's going on beneath the surface.

As part of its pavement maintenance program, Villa Park contracts with a private firm that runs a laser-equipped truck over each street to measure pavement deflection - how much the pavement moves when a car drives over it. That measurement is plugged into an algorithm to come up with the condition of a street's base.

A rating of 100 to 85 is considered very good, 84 to 80 good, 79 to 70 average, below 70 fair and below 59 failing, Juskelis said.

"Almost like in school, I guess," he said.

At the bottom is Michigan Avenue between Division Street and St. Charles Road, which is rated 30. Michigan Avenue is one of 23 streets slated for reconstruction.

Other low grades go to Cortesi Avenue between Myrtle and Kenilworth avenues (36), Kenilworth Avenue between West End and Harvard Avenue (41) and Euclid Avenue between Kenilworth Avenue and Central (41).

In contrast, shiny gold stars to Myrtle Avenue between Julia Drive and Harrison Street (97) and Sunset Drive between Westwood Avenue and Westmore Avenue (97), the village's top-rated streets.

Overall, the average pavement rating for Villa Park streets is 77, which is 10 points higher than it was 20 years ago.

But "we're having issues catching up with the list of bad streets," Juskelis said. "We've had two very, very bad winters (for pavement), and a lot of streets are showing surface deterioration. Some have to be rebuilt from the ground up."

The price tag to rebuild a street can be as high as $3 million a mile, depending on work involved for underground utilities, curbs and parkways.

The cost to rebuild Kenilworth Avenue between Ardmore and Harvard is estimated at $715,000 for just three blocks.

Rebuilding the worst section of Michigan Avenue is expected to cost $1 million for one-third of a mile.

While the pavement deflection measurement gives a pretty good idea of what's going on underneath the surface of a street, additional tests - such as core samples and soil borings - are needed to determine how to fix it.

Twenty-seven streets are slated to be resurfaced if voters approve the bond issue. The process includes patching and either a 2- or 3-inch grind and overlay.

Concrete patching/resurfacing is planned for 18 concrete streets in the village.

The bond issue also would cover curb repairs and storm sewer separation in areas where rainwater causes the sewers to back up.

If voters say yes, the street improvements would take three years. Streets that are slated for resurfacing would be first.

A complete list of all streets affected by the referendum is available on the village's Web site, invillapark.com.