West Toledo utility, road work on Monroe to extend into December

A worker stops traffic due to gas line construction Thursday on Monroe Street, between Secor Road and Sylvania Avenue.

The Blade/Dave Zapotosky
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Lanes are reduced as gas line construction continues Thursday on Monroe Street, between Secor Road and Sylvania Avenue.

Like an un­wanted Christ­mas pres­ent, gas-line con­struc­tion along an al­ready con­gested stretch of Mon­roe Street is stick­ing around — well into the hol­i­day shop­ping sea­son.

When Co­lum­bia Gas of Ohio started dig­ging holes in the mid­dle of Mon­roe on Oct. 25 for ac­cess points to run new gas mains be­neath the street near Se­cor — a pre­para­tory step be­fore the city of Toledo re­builds Se­cor from Mon­roe to Cen­tral Avenue next year — it ex­pected the work to be done by to­day.

But on Thurs­day, the city trans­por­ta­tion di­vi­sion an­nounced the gas-main work will take nearly a month lon­ger, keep­ing lanes closed through Dec. 15.

A Co­lum­bia Gas spokes­man blamed the de­lay on a cause that should be fa­mil­iar to or­ange-bar­rel-weary mo­tor­ists: un­der­ground util­ity con­flicts. “We found a ce­ment wall. We found a steel sewer ba­sin that no­body knew about,” spokes­man Chris Kozak said. “ ... It’s ba­si­cally the na­ture of un­der­ground dig­ging.”

Gas-main work along Se­cor be­tween Mon­roe and Cen­tral that was sched­uled to end Thanks­giv­ing Eve also has been ex­tended to Dec. 15. That work has re­quired in­ter­mit­tent lane clos­ings since late sum­mer.

A worker stops traffic due to gas line construction Thursday on Monroe Street, between Secor Road and Sylvania Avenue.

The work oc­ca­sion­ally has caused traf­fic ex­it­ing I-475 at the Se­cor in­ter­change to back up on the ramps, es­pe­cially west­bound.

But un­like the work on Mon­roe, the Se­cor work re­quires no full-time lane clos­ings, and city of­fi­cials said all lanes will be open on Se­cor dur­ing the Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day week­end.

The Mon­roe work has closed the cen­ter left-turn lane plus the left lanes in both di­rec­tions. Mr. Kozak said all work will be sus­pended next week, al­low­ing the left lanes to re­open but keep­ing the cen­ter lane closed.

Even so, Gene Kelly, a spokes­man for the city trans­por­ta­tion di­vi­sion, said mo­tor­ists would do well to avoid Mon­roe near Se­cor, es­pe­cially when work is un­der way.

“It’s go­ing to be a com­plete mess,” he said. “We would rec­om­mend Tal­madge [Road], and that’s prob­a­bly the only road we can rec­om­mend.”

Of course, Tal­madge Road is rarely clear sail­ing, ei­ther, when thou­sands of shop­pers are us­ing it each day to get to and from West­field Frank­lin Park mall.

Mr. Kozak, a for­mer West Toledo res­i­dent who once worked at the mall, ac­knowl­edged that the $3.7 mil­lion gas-line proj­ect is in­con­ve­nient for mo­tor­ists but said Co­lum­bia has been or­dered to move its pipes be­fore the city re­builds Se­cor.

The util­ity orig­i­nally planned to lay the new lines along Mon­roe out­side the street, as it is do­ing along Se­cor, “but we were un­able to se­cure the ease­ments we needed” to do that, he said.

Over­all, the spokes­man said, Co­lum­bia is re­plac­ing 7,000 feet of gas main with new 12-inch steel or 4-inch plas­tic pipe. The proj­ect is 90 per­cent com­plete and will be fin­ished ear­lier than the new dead­line if pos­si­ble, Mr. Kozak said.

Con­tact David Patch at:dpatch@the­blade.com or 419-724-6094.