Final push for several Kane County road projects

Just about a month to go.

That's what drivers have to endure for the Kane County projects at Kirk Road and Route 38, and Randall Road and Route 64, according to Dave Boesch, superintendent of construction.

Both should be done by Oct. 31. And yes, they are on schedule, even if it feels differently to drivers stuck in traffic.

"It's kind of like a pregnancy -- you want it to be over," a sympathetic Boesch said Friday of the Kirk Road-Route 38 project on Geneva's east side.

This week, traffic will be reduced to one lane north and south on Kirk Road, so workers can make a median. Later in the week he expects they will open up the right-turn lanes on all four legs of the intersection. After that, they will work on the medians on Route 38.

Over at Randall Road and Route 64 in St. Charles this week, they will raise manholes on southbound Randall Road and eastbound Route 64, in preparation for the final paving of the road. Boesch expects the paving to be done in early October. Then workers will do landscaping and electrical work.

"Kind of buttoning (the project) up," he said.

Kirk Road, Route 56

As two major projects wind down, another has started up at Kirk Road and Route 56 (Butterfield Road) in Aurora.

This week, workers will remove pavement along Butterfield, and will start widening Kirk Road and putting in temporary pavement, Boesch said.

First Street

It's just so cool.

A gigantic -- I mean GIGANTIC -- crane began putting precast concrete panels in place for the parking deck at First and Illinois streets last week.

The panels come from a plant in Wisconsin. The trucks delivering them have been coming down Route 64 east to Route 31, then south to Walnut Street. But that will change sometime in the next week, as longer panels will start arriving. The longer panels will travel down Route 47 to Route 38, then north onto Route 31 to Walnut.

This week, utility work to the north of the parking deck will wind down. City electrical workers ran into a bit of a problem that delayed it: when digging, they hit an old, unknown foundation wall. That wall then fell, taking with it an AT&T telephone line, which then had to be repaired. They'll finish the electrical work this week and open up the access drive to the back entrances of Main Street businesses.

"Things will get back to normal fairly soon," said Terry Heffron, project liaison.

Batavia bridge

"Britta is officially in her office."

That's the word from Heffron, who is also the liaison for the Wilson Street bridge replacement. Britta is Britta McKenna, director of Batavia MainStreet, which has its office at 2 E. Wilson, on the south side.

MainStreet had a wonderful bridge information center set up on its first floor, with photographs of bridge construction, prizes and activities for kids, information about special bridge-related sales and a cool window seat perch to watch bridge construction.

But a problem was discovered when workers dug out the southeast abutment of the old bridge: improper sealing of old doors and windows in the basement led to building damage, including rotting. The center was closed from late April to now, while that was being fixed and the sidewalks were being built on that portion of Wilson.

The information center is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Meanwhile, work continues to destroy the piers and the west abutment on the north half of the old bridge. On the south side, the sidewalks are paved. But decorative stone and brick landscaping won't be placed until the spring.