By Annika Lundgren and Nikole Jaramillo
City officials say they are confident that the $17.1 million Monroe Street construction project will be done before Thanksgiving.
However, when snow begins to fall and the temperatures reach below 40 degrees, paving the roads will become nearly impossible, and Speedway Sand and Gravel will have to stop work for the season, said James Wolfe, the city’s construction director of the Monroe Street Project.
“The cold weather mostly affects concrete and asphalt paving,” Wolfe said. “Concrete work can be done when temps are well below 40, but they need to cover the concrete while it’s curing to keep it as warm and insulated as possible.
“There are different methods of doing this, depending on the temperatures. All concrete requires some cure time to reach full strength, and, depending on the mix and temperatures, this time will range from about a day to up to a week.”
Paving the asphalt cannot be done when the temperature is below 40 degrees without permission from the engineer.
“There are some special construction methods that can be used to do the paving in cold weather, but that 40 degree cut-off is the best practice. That would only be required while actually paving, so they can usually wait until a little later in the day, when the temperatures are a little higher, rather than starting right away in the morning,” Wolfe said.
Estimated 100 complaints
There have also been multiple complaints about property damages related to the project. These include damage to cars, sidewalks, and front yards, and sewage problems.
“We don’t keep a record of the number of complaints,” Wolfe said. “A lot of complaints and comments are also made to other people or departments. If I had to guess, I would maybe say around 100.”
Wolfe confirmed that there are at least two official claims that have been made against the construction company and the city.
In both claims, the main concern is that there is flooding in the basements of two households.
Homeowners said they believe that the construction is the main cause of the flooding. Yet the construction company said that there is already damage done inside of the houses to cause that flooding—the construction just made it worse.
Wolfe said he does not feel comfortable releasing information on the complaints because they are currently going through the legal process.
The city continues to investigate.
Although there are property claims and complaints relating to the construction, there are no known injuries to workers or pedestrians so far.
Students frustrated
Along with complaints from residents of the Monroe Street neighborhoods, there are many students frustrated about the project.
The Monroe Street construction has made getting to Edgewood College inconvenient since March. The temporarily one-way street has caused heavy traffic and the need to find alternate, often longer, routes to school.
While the intention is for the street itself to be fixed, most of the work that needed to be done was underground. Sanitary sewers needed to be re-piped, especially in the Glenway area. Additional connection points in the system were added to take off some of the pressure from the sewers to prevent damage from flooding.
Weather setbacks
Most of this work has been done despite recent weather conditions, and the project has finally gotten to the point where the street is being repaved.
Several days throughout the past few months have had poor weather conditions for construction. Multiple rain storms have set back construction little by little because of wind and flooding. The flooding set back the pipe work in the sewers because the construction workers needed to drain everything before continuing to put the pipes in place.
Traffic
Slow traffic is an expected consequence of frequent stops on a one-way street, but Madison Metro worked on solutions to minimize this as much as possible. Key bus stops on the routes coming through construction were kept in order to reduce traffic.
Work was completed in the areas with the most important stops earlier in order to restore travel convenience for buses. Additionally, shuttle buses looping between Monroe and the West Transfer Point have been added.
Like Madison Metro, businesses on Monroe Street received notice before work began in order to give owners a chance to inform their customers. The construction company and business owners work out how often they communicate and what information will be given, focusing mainly on what intersections will be closed and when.
Despite the decrease in traffic, businesses must maintain their operations as usual, although it does come with great difficulty.
Scott Schwebel of Colectivo Coffee said, “It’s hard to operate when customers can’t get to you.”
Schwebel, like many students and neighborhood business owners and residents, said he hopes the project is finished as soon as possible to restore the flow of the neighborhood.
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