Good news, bad news for area traffic

First Street in St. Charles is now totally open to traffic. And you can park on the street at the south end.

Yay!

But through-traffic behind Main Street businesses will be shut down this week, through at least the beginning of December, for construction of the parking deck/The Plaza building. Twelve to 20 trucks a day will be delivering pre-cast concrete panels.

Some pretty cool work should be going on this week, if you're inclined to be a sidewalk superintendent (from a safe distance, of course.) They'll be using a crane to set the panels.

Don't worry that you're the only one who finds construction interesting; I've seen moms with young kids pausing their strollers so the "Bob the Builder" set can take in real-life construction on this massive downtown redevelopment project.

Bridge work: Workers plan to begin demolishing the north half of the Wilson Street bridge in Batavia this week. To do that, they'll have to park equipment on the south half. So each night this week, and all day Saturday and Sunday, the whole bridge will be closed.

In Island Park: Representatives from the Geneva Park District will present their plans for the replacement of the north bridge in Island Park to the Geneva Historic Preservation Commission at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The meeting is at the Geneva city hall, 109 James St. The commission gets to rule on the design for replacing the 76-year-old bridge because the structure is in Geneva's historic district.

Attention cyclists: A section of the Great Western Trail will be closed Sept. 24-28 for bridge replacement.

No access will be allowed between Meredith Road and Route 47. The trail runs from St. Charles to the DeKalb County line.

Over on Route 59: A reader of our traffic column in DuPage County was worried about traffic on Route 59 near Wayne and Bartlett, particularly between Army Trail and Stearns roads.

There are 850 living units in the Woodland Hills subdivision on the west side of Route 59, and the only full exit from the neighborhood to both northbound and southbound Route 59 is via Schick Road. Route 59 is slightly curved at that spot. However, it doesn't appear that there are any plans for a traffic signal at the right-turn-in/right-turn-out-only entrance and exit at Woodland Hills Parkway.

"The latest data we have doesn't indicate any high accident locations on Route 59 between Army Trail Road and Stearns Road," said Roger Valente, area programmer for DuPage County with the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Regarding changing the intersection of Route 59 at Woodland Hills Parkway to an intersection with traffic signals, that project is in the final stages of approval.

"The village of Bartlett hired a consultant to engineer the project, and those designs have met our approval," Valente said. "We just mailed to the village the final permit and bond forms they need to fill out and get back to us, and as soon as we receive them, the project can move forward."

Pavia-Marting and Co. of Roselle is doing the project for the village, and the funding is already in place. The department of transportation will pay two-thirds of the cost, up to a maximum of $215,000, and the village will pay the rest.

Besides installing traffic signals and synchronizing them with other signals in the area, the northbound Route 59 left-turn lane to westbound Woodland Hills Parkway will be lengthened.

There also will be a dedicated right-turn lane installed from southbound Route 59 to westbound Woodland Hills Parkway.

Pete Stresino, an engineer with Pavia-Marting, said the project should be completed in June or July.