A busy stretch of roadway that passes through North Riverside is about to get even more bumper-to-bumper this spring.
The state of Illinois is planning to resurface about six miles of Harlem Avenue, from 26th Street all the way north to Cullom Avenue, starting likely in May. This will be the first time that Harlem’s been redone since 1996, according to Oak Park Village Engineer Jim Budrick.
“We’ve lived through it before. People are just going to have to find alternative routes,” he said, pointing to First Avenue as the next closest state highway.
A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Transportation could not answer questions late Friday, and the office was closed Monday. According to Budrick, the state was expected to pick a contractor soon. The low bidder, K-Five Construction, is offering to do the job for about $4 million.
According to the bid specifications, the contractor will have until the end of August to finish the job, but Budrick expects work to wrap within about two months after a May start. The contractor is being asked to scrape the top couple of inches of asphalt and then resurface the roadway. Other minor repairs will be made along the way. Each lane will probably be shut down to traffic and repaved one at a time, Budrick said.
