GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – As the temperatures begin to slide and leaves start changing color, road work across Green Bay is also aiming to wind things down soon. But that doesn’t mean everything is finished quite yet.
A project on Gray Street, between Dousman and Mather, has been in the works all summer. Green Bay Public Works Director Steve Grenier says it’s the second phase of a full reconstruction in that area.
” We went from Velp Avenue to Mather on the first phase, and this is taking it all the way down to Dousman now,” Grenier said. “The utilities underneath the street are being reconstructed, re-laid, or updated and upgraded. So that’s what’s been going on for the bulk of the summer so far…This was always anticipated to take all summer. This is going to take us right up until just before the snow flies.”
That reconstruction project is replacing or repairing everything from water mains to sanitary and stormwater sewer systems underneath the road.
“The pavement is always the last piece to be completed, obviously, because then you can’t dig anymore,” Grenier said. “If we’ve got poor drainage and it’s ponding, if the base underneath has failed, there’s a number of engineering things that we’ll take a look at.”
Grenier points out that sometimes a lot of digging can cause damage to pavement structure and supporting layers of the road, so it just makes more sense to reconstruct the whole thing than to attempt to resurface.
“What we’re trying to do is not only get the driving surface back to where people need it to be, but also make sure that everything that’s buried underneath has enough life in it that we’re not going to have to dig up a perfectly good road just a few years down the line,” Grenier told WTAQ News.
Grenier expects the Gray Street project to wrap up sometime in late October or early November. But that’s not the only thing going on in town. A similar effort is taking place along Jackson Street, between Bodart and East Mason.
Another project that just started causing lane restrictions on Monday is set to address stormwater issues in the area of University Avenue and Danz Avenue. Traffic is down to one late in each direction along University, and that could cause some delays and headaches.
Grenier says he understands it’s a busy intersection, but recommends drivers find an alternate route if possible for the next 2-3 weeks while crews work on the road there.
To learn more about what’s going on with Green Bay Public Works, head to their website.
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