Rebuilding busy mile of Secor Road could start as soon as March 11; no contractor chosen yet

2/19/2013

Rebuilding a busy mile of Secor Road could start as soon as March 11, and the city's contractor will face a $10,000 per day penalty if the work isn't done by Nov. 1, city officials said at a meeting today about the project.

The contractor, which remains to be chosen, also will get a $10,000 per day bonus for finishing early on the work to rebuild Secor between Central Avenue and Monroe Street, said Steve Hamilton, the division of engineering services' newly hired community liaison.

"We're very serious about getting this done," Timothy Grosjean, the city's project engineer, told about an audience of about a dozen at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Secor just north of Sylvania Avenue. Secor is a busy commercial corridor, Mr. Grosjean said, and the city wants no traffic problems during the Christmas shopping season.

Construction will be divided into four basic phases, Mr. Grosjean explained. First to start will be replacement of an eight-inch water main under Secor's center with a 12-inch pipe. Then the street will be rebuilt in sections, starting with the stretch between Central and I-475, followed by the intersections at Central and at I-475, and concluding between the freeway and Monroe.

Three lanes of traffic will be maintained: one for through traffic in each direction, plus a center lane for left turns. Traffic backups are expected, and Mr. Hamilton said a key part of managing congestion will be that motorists not block driveways when they stop, so that people waiting to turn left into those driveways don't jam up the center lane.

"We can all make this work, or we can screw it up so bad it's gridlocked," he said.