As part of the Prairie Avenue street reconstruction project set to begin in the spring of 2006, work crews are expected to cut down roughly 30 trees between 31st Street and Washington Avenue to allow for street widening.
Because Prairie Avenue is a designated collector route in Brookfield, the project qualified for federal matching funds that will pay for approximately 75 percent of the total cost. The 2006 portion of the two-year effort is estimated to cost $1.8 million. The portion of Prairie Avenue from Washington Avenue to Brookfield Avenue will be completed in 2007.
Because the village is using federal funds for the work, it must meet certain minimum standards, said Village Engineer Derek Treichel. Federal standards require 12-foot-wide traffic lanes and 8-foot-wide parking lanes. Brookfield applied for and received a variance from the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) to shrink the traffic lane requirement to 11 feet and parking lane requirement to 7 feet.
Even with those variances, however, north of Washington Avenue, Prairie Avenue will be widened by 1 foot on each side, making a narrow parkway that much narrower.
“We didn’t know early on that this many trees would be taken down by the widening,” Treichel said. “The trunks are set back far enough, but the roots on the surface extend close to the back of the curb.”
Treichel added that Prairie Avenue would not have to be widened south of Washington Avenue. Work on the entire length of the street will include the installation of new curbs and gutters, a complete reconstruction of the pavement, installation of new driveway aprons and handicap-accessible curb cuts. In 2006, crews will install about 350 feet of 8-inch water main underneath the south sidewalk on Washington Avenue from Prairie to Forest.
In addition to sod replacement on parkways, Treichel said that the village is also including an estimate on the cost to replace the trees that will be lost during the construction.
Brookfield Village Forester Scott DeRoss has completed an impact study to determine how many and which types of trees would be affected by the project. The majority of the trees that will be coming down are large silver maples that currently grow close to the curb on either side of the street.
“The unfortunate thing about widening is that they have to trench to get the curb line wider,” DeRoss said. “That will rip up the roots and cause damage.”
According to DeRoss, the silver maple is a troublesome tree in that it’s a softwood maple, prone to rotting on the interior and to storm damage. He said that the village would not use silver maples as replacements. Rather, he has forwarded a list of “six or so” native hardwood species to Hancock Engineering for replacement trees after the road work is completed.
Depending on when construction finishes, new trees could be planted as early as next fall.
“We’d like to do it within a year,” DeRoss said. “It really depends on when the project’s finished.”
Treichel said that IDOT would bid out the project in January, and that construction would begin in March or April of 2006.
