APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – College Avenue’s future as a three-lane road is coming closer, as Appleton chooses a contractor for the project.
The project — which changes the four-lane road to three lanes from State Street to Drew Street — was approved by the city’s common council last month, but the city is now working to choose a contractor.
Appleton’s Municipal Services Committee recommended a contractor’s bid on Monday. The bid, which would cover pavement marking changes, would cost the city roughly $72,000.
“The quote that we’re recommending approval is the low quote, which is about $30,000 less than the […] second lowest quote,” said Appleton City Traffic Engineer Eric Lom. “There’s some work that we’re going to do in house in terms of signage and things like that, but in terms of the pavement markings themselves, it’s about 95% of what the public will see and what it takes to get the project done.”
One of the top priorities for Appleton officials was finding a plan that would work with the city’s summer schedule. Officials did not want to interrupt downtown events like Mile of Music or weekly farmers markets.
“This is the pavement marking contractor that we’re going to bring it’s that gonna actually do most of the work related to the project — we’re gonna basically have that work done under traffic,” said Lom. “In other words, we’re not going to close the streets in order to do it. We’re just going to restrict traffic to certain lanes, so that we can get the work accomplished with the least inconvenience we can.”
Appleton hopes to have the project complete by the end of summer but does not want to start any earlier than the beginning of July.
In total, officials only expect the actual contractor work to take about a week.
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