ICYMI: New signals, turn lanes coming to Sterling’s Route 40/Locust Street

STERLING – Major changes are coming this spring to one of Sterling’s busiest stretches of road.

Locust Street/state Route 40, from 14th to a little south of 25th Street, is being widened and resurfaced, and two traffic lights are being added.

The work will be done on a little less than a mile of the state roadway, but it’s a mile that sees a raft of traffic, running as it does past the intersection with LeFevre Road, where CGH Medical Center sits, past Miller Road, which funnels traffic from the CGH Main Clinic and Sterling High School, past the Kroger’s/CVS shopping center at St Mary’s Road/23rd Street where traffic from Newman Central Catholic High School also spills onto Locust, and past the intersection with Lynn Boulevard, the bypass that brings reams of traffic from the western side of town to the restaurants, gas stations and car dealerships on Locust and beyond, on to the major business hub on Lincolnway.

It’s because of that volume of traffic that the project been in the works for several years – it’s on the Illinois Department of Transportation’s most recent 5-year plan – but now the state and federal funding has come in, and so work can begin, said Michael Kuehn, studies and plans engineer for IDOT District 2 in Dixon.

It will take the better part of the construction season to complete, from May until probably sometime in November, Kuehn said. The call for bids will go out in March.

The plan:

• Locust will be completely rebuilt from LeFevre to Lynn, with the pavement replaced and the road widened to three lanes to include a yellow-arrowed center left turn lane. IDOT has been buying the rights of way needed for the encroachment, Kuehn said.

• Traffic signals will be added at Miller and St. Mary’s/23rd Street, while the signals at Lynn and LeFevre will be upgraded with left-turn arrows.

• A multiuse path will be built on the east side of Locust, north of LeFevre.

• A sidewalk will be added on the west side.

• Storm sewer, curb and gutter work will be done.

• Locust will be milled and resurfaced from 14th to just north of LeFevre, and from Lynn to just south of East 25th Street.

It’s a $3.3 million project, of which the city’s share will be around $107,000. That’s $95,295, or 10% of the cost of the traffic signals and all of the costs of the attendant electric engineering at LeFevre, Miller Road, St Mary’s Road/23rd Street and Lynn Boulevard, which are local streets, and the rest for manhole adjustments for the city’s sewer lines.

IDOT will cover all the rest of the engineering and construction costs for the state road using a combination of federal and state funds.

Future maintenance and any reconstruction costs will be the city’s responsibility.

That .86 miles of road always will be at least partially open during construction, although there will be a couple of months where it will be one southbound lane only, so people can get to CGH hospital, Kuehn said.

It’s not the only transformation IDOT plans for state Route 40.

One mile north of 25th, where 40 intersects with Science Ridge Road, a temporary four-way stop has been installed in advance of a roundabout that is planned for safety reasons.

Speed and an increasing volume of traffic have caused a rise in crashes at that intersection, where traffic on east-west-running Science Ridge must stop for traffic on the busy north-south-running Route 40, which has a 55 mph speed limit at that point.

The crash report – a history IDOT keeps of troublesome intersections – shows many collisions there involved people stopping at the stop sign then heading onto or through 40 and getting hit, either because the driver can’t see far enough up or down 40, or more likely, because the driver underestimates the speed of oncoming traffic.

The best way to slow things down and still keep traffic flowing is by installing a roundabout, a project that now included in IDOT’s multiyear transportation program for 2022-27, IDOT officials said.

The four-way, which obviously completely stops drivers at the intersection, is not a good permanent solution because long lines of traffic will back up there, especially when nearby Wahl Clipper workers are heading to and from work, while a roundabout will keep traffic moving at a steady clip while also reducing speeds and increasing safety, IDOT engineers have said.

It takes about three years from initial study to construction, so the roundabout could be completed as early as 2024.

It will be Sterling’s second – the LeFevre Road/Lynn Boulevard roundabout near Halo Branded Solutions has been open more than a year, and despite the fears of many who said crashes would increase as a result, the opposite, in fact, is true – few, if any, have been reported there.

The city also has plans to improve traffic flow near the riverfront that include a roundabout at Avenue B.

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Locust Street/Illinois Route 40 in Sterling will be rebuilt from LeFevre to Lynn, with a yellow-arrowed turn lane installed at the intersection of Lynn and Locust. (Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@shawmedia.com)