Widening planned for Wabash, Dirksen bottlenecks

By TIM LANDIS
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER


Two of Springfield’s busiest road bottlenecks — one on the west side, the other on the northeast — are in for additional lanes, safety improvements and resurfacing in a five-year state transportation plan.

About $23 million has been set aside to complete the widening of Wabash Avenue from Interstate 72 to Veterans Parkway and about $10 million for similar work on Dirksen Parkway from Clear Lake Avenue to Ridge Avenue.

For those who must navigate the roads to and from homes and businesses, the work can’t start soon enough.

“It’s always a traffic issue in the mornings and evenings,” said Roger Kanerva, who lives just off Wabash Avenue.

“We presumed this had to happen eventually. We’re hoping it wouldn’t be delayed terribly,” said Kanerva, president of the Southwest Springfield Neighborhood Association.

The projects are in the 2010-2015 state transportation construction plan, and both were included in a $31 billion capital bill just signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn.

Both also represent the final piece of improvements for east-west and north-south traffic corridors that have been off and on local and state highway planning boards for decades.

“They have been getting into the transportation plan as they can get the funding for them,” said Linda Wheeland, senior planner with the Springfield- Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission.

Long-term plans are to widen Wabash Avenue as far as the village of Curran, she added.

The push to expand Dirksen Parkway north of Clear Lake Avenue picked up following the 2001 opening of a Wal-Mart supercenter on the north end. The section between Clear Lake and Ridge avenues is the final stretch targeted for four lanes, plus a turn lane.

State transportation officials also opened bids in April to upgrade lighting on a two-mile stretch of Dirksen between Bissell Road and Ridge Avenue. Law enforcement figures show more than two dozen pedestrians and bicyclists were struck by vehicles along the section of road from 2003 to 2008. Four fatalities resulted.

“It’s a crazy thing for a town to have a bottleneck like that,” said Gibbs Glisson, owner of Gibbs Glisson Motors at 240 N. Dirksen Parkway.

Glisson has been in the automotive business on Dirksen for more than 25 years, including seven at the existing location. The dealership is on a short five-lane stretch just south of the two-lane bottleneck.

“I hear ’em revving their engines out there,” Glisson said of drivers caught in a northbound merge lane as Dirksen shifts from four to two lanes.

There were still more farmhouses and fields than businesses west of Pleasant Nursery Inc. when the business moved to 4234 Wabash Ave. in the early 1990s, said Denise Buscher, whose parents, Frank and Agnes Moscardelli, founded the business.

Now, the nursery and surrounding Pleasant Park business development is on the last section of Wabash yet to be converted to four lanes and a turn lane.

“There are times of the day when you have a hard time getting out on Wabash,” said Buscher.
“We’re kind of in the bottleneck in the middle, so we would much appreciate this happening. We can’t wait for it to happen.”

City public works director Mike Norris said details of both projects are being worked out with state transportation officials, though Illinois Department of Transportation summaries indicate work could begin next year.

While the state will design the projects, the city intends to make suggestions, especially for the Wabash Avenue project, he said.

“There are some things that we’re going to ask them to do that might not be in there. We’d like to see sidewalks along some sections of Wabash,” said Norris, who added that the improvements also should ease long-term flooding problems near I-72.



Highlights
Improvements to Wabash Avenue and North Dirksen Parkway will create new multi-lane corridors in two of the city’s fastest-growing commercial
districts. Here are highlights of each of the projects:

Wabash Avenue

.75 miles; estimated cost $23 million. Will complete an east-west corridor from Interstate 72 to the Interstate 55 business loop at Sixth Street.

Design work has begun for five-lane section from Interstate 72 to Koke Mill Road; drainage improvements and additional sidewalks; signals added at Meadowbrook Road; realignment of some intersections.

Dirksen Parkway

1.03 miles from Clear Lake Avenue to Ridge Avenue; will complete a multi-lane corridor from Peoria Road to Stevenson Drive.

Design work has begun for widening, drainage improvements and additional sidewalks.

Average daily vehicle counts

Wabash Avenue (east-west)
I-72 interchange: 11,300
Archer Elevator Road: 12,200
Meadow Brook Road: 14,300
West White Oaks Drive: 18,000
Veterans Parkway: 23,900
North Dirksen (north-south)
Clear Lake Avenue: 21,600
Ridge Avenue 18,200
Sangamon Avenue: 25,100
Source: Illinois Department of Transportation