Blog: City Blog

Replacement of 8 Deteriorating Downtown Crosswalks Gets Underway

Details of Phase 1 of a project to replace 8 crosswalks downtown.. This map shows street closures and recommended detours. All sidewalks will remain open.

Today, contractor crews with Design and Construction Services Inc. got started downtown on a $182,040 project to replace eight deteriorating brick crosswalks with stained stamped concrete crosswalks.

To accommodate the work at the Gay Street intersections with Union and Wall avenues and Summit Hill Drive, a section of Gay Street will be closed to vehicles through Aug. 17.

At all times, sidewalks will remain open, and ADA-accessible ramps for temporary crosswalks will be built to avoid long pedestrian detours around the work zones.

The new stained stamped crosswalks will look familiar. The reddish crosswalks, which resemble brick, are in place on Main Street, on Cumberland Avenue and the southernmost intersections on Gay Street.

The new crosswalks mark the first major upgrades at the three Gay Street intersections in three decades.

The existing crosswalks are uneven and have bricks missing. The pattern stamped into new concrete will hold up much longer than the original brick design.

Design and Construction Services Inc. will be dividing the Gay Street work into two phases spanning 40 calendar days.

The first phase involves replacement of four crosswalks at two intersections – three crosswalks at Wall Avenue and Gay, another at Summit Hill and Gay. That work began today, as workers used saws and jackhammers to remove the patchwork of bricks and asphalt.

Once the work at Wall and Summit Hill is completed, DCSI crews will move southward and replace the four crosswalks at Union Avenue and Gay.

The entire project is scheduled to wrap up by Aug. 17; daily penalties will be assessed if the contractor misses the deadline for completion.

During the Phase 1 work at the Summit Hill and Wall intersections, commercial loading will be allowed on the west side of Gay in the 300 block. The crosswalk on Gay at Summit Hill will be done one lane at a time, so that one lane is always open to local traffic – including delivery trucks or motorists parking in two surface parking lots in the 300 block.

Northbound Gay Street motorists during Phase 1 will be detoured by turning right onto Union, then left onto State Street to access Summit Hill. Southbound motorists will turn off Summit Hill onto Locust Street, then left onto Union to access Gay Street.

During Phase 2, closures will extend southward on Gay to just north of the Clinch Avenue intersection. Commercial loading zones will be in place on Market Street, near Market Square. Traffic flow will temporarily be reversed on one block of Market Street to allow local traffic and delivery vehicles to exit onto Clinch.

Northbound Gay Street motorists during the Phase 2 work at Union and Gay will detour left onto Clinch, then right onto Walnut to access Summit Hill.

Southbound motorists will head south off Summit Hill onto Locust, then left onto Church to access Gay Street.

Here are a few photos of the work getting underway by DCSI crews, taken this morning by Summer in the City intern Jaylyn Ball:

Contractor crews have begun work to replace eight deteriorating crosswalks on the northern end of downtown.

Contractor crews have begun work to replace eight deteriorating crosswalks on the northern end of downtown.

Motorists are being detoured around the work site. Gay Street is closed between Summit Hill Drive and a spot just north of Union Avenue.

Uneven and deteriorating brick crosswalks are being replaced with stained stamped concrete crosswalks.

Posted by evreeland On 09 July, 2018 at 3:51 PM