The village of Brookfield will partner with Lyons, its neighbor to the east, next year on a nearly $2 million project to repave Custer Avenue from 47th Street to Ogden Avenue.
Brookfield’s village trustees are expected to approve an intergovernmental agreement with Lyons for the work on April 25. The village of Lyons has already signed on to the agreement, which essentially splits in half the cost each municipality will have to pay.
The project will be in addition to the referendum-funded street improvements Brookfield will undertake in 2017.
Lyons and Brookfield decided to move ahead with the agreement after the project qualified for federal funding through the West Central Municipal Conference, which administers funds from the Surface Transportation Program that targets the improvement of “collector” streets.
Collector streets, essentially, are the bridges between residential streets and main arterial roads, like Ogden Avenue and 47th Street. Both Lyons and Brookfield are sharing the cost because Custer Avenue serves as a border between the two villages.
Lyons has already been doing infrastructure work on its side of Custer Avenue, including sidewalk and water system improvements that have left the street with several uneven patches.
According to a memo last month from Hancock Engineering, the village of Brookfield’s engineering firm, the work on Custer Avenue will include replacing sections of deteriorating combined sewer and repairing or replacing old manholes. Each side of the street will be widened by 1 foot, and new curbs and gutters will be installed.
The street will be widened, said Brookfield Village Engineer Derek Treichel, because the project is using federal funds for improving collector routes. The resulting street will have full-width traffic lanes in each direction plus fill parking lanes on each side of the street.
“There are minimum lane-width requirements,” said Treichel.
In addition, any driveway aprons that are disturbed will be replaced, and handicap-accessible sidewalk ramps will be installed at the corners of intersections. The street surface will be milled off and replaced with new asphalt and any grass disturbed on the public parkways will be replaced with sod.
According to the Hancock Engineering memo to the Brookfield Village Board, the federal government’s share of the total cost will be about $1.3 million, with Brookfield and Lyons splitting the remaining cost of about $620,000.
Design engineering will be completed in 2016, with the expectation that the project will go out for competitive bidding in January 2017. Because the project is using federal funds, the Illinois Department of Transportation will be handling the bid process and awarding the construction contract.
Construction is expected to begin in April 2017 and work is expected to take about a month, according to Hancock Engineering.
Brookfield and Lyons are also contemplating a separate intergovernmental agreement to resurface Custer Avenue north of Ogden Avenue. That roughly two-block stretch between Ogden and Southview avenues is not considered a collector route and does not qualify for federal funding, which is why it is not part of the grant-funded project.
As a result, the two villages will have to come up with a separate cost-sharing agreement. The portion of Custer Avenue north of Ogden, according to the 2013 road condition survey conducted by the village of Brookfield, is rated a “2,” which is the second-worst condition in the 5-point survey.
Work would include resurfacing the street and making spot repairs to curbs and gutters, along with repairing any deteriorated sewer and drainage structures. Custer Avenue would not be widened north of Ogden, said Treichel.
While there’s no agreement to approve at the moment, said Treichel, “the villages are working toward coming to an agreement to improve that street in the near future.”
