Loves Park plans ‘heavy duty’ resurfacing for Paulson Road
By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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LOVES PARK — The city plans to undertake “heavy duty” resurfacing of a rough stretch of Paulson Road this year.
“We’re going to fix it up so it’s actually driveable. It’s in horrible shape right now,” said Steve Thompson, the city’s director of community development and public works. “We’re going to make it back into a road, let’s put it that way.”
Last week, City Council members OK’d the hiring of Arc Design Resources for $25,600 to prepare preliminary engineering for the reconstruction. The road would be milled from the start of a rough area north of Orth Road to Harlem Road and covered with a new surface.
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Roughly 400 cars per day travel the road, according to Illinois Department of Transportation daily traffic estimates. While it was seldom used for many years, it has gotten more attention with the expansion of Mercyhealth Sportscore Two, the opening of Costco and other development in the area.
Thompson said the city is preparing the engineering now in hopes it helps get the project out to bid early this spring, giving the city a better chance to capture competitive prices or win grants for projects that must be shovel ready.
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“The sooner we can get that to the table and bid it out, the less it’s going to cost us,” Mayor Greg Jury said. “That will end up saving us thousands of dollars by being early to the table.”
Jury said the road has probably needed resurfacing for six or seven years.
“They’ve been bad roads for a long time, it’s just us coming up with the revenue to do it,” he said. “We’re at the point now where we can get out there and take care of that.”
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.
