STERLING – Three major construction projects and one involving utility upgrades are underway or about to get underway in Sterling – and two of them involve the construction of the city’s second and third roundabouts.

Route 40 roundabout work begins July 24

Construction of the city’s third roundabout, at Science Ridge Road and state Route 40 on the north edge of town, will begin July 24 and will close Science Ridge for 60 days, Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Kristopher Owens said in an email.

Completion of the roundabout will take three weeks beyond the 60-day closure, which means the project should be finished by the end of the second week in October.

The intersection will be closed for the duration of the project, IDOT said. It recommends detouring around the project using Route 2 and Freeport and Milledgeville roads.

So as not to further inconvenience drivers, Sterling Township, which maintains Science Ridge, will take advantage of the closure and repair and replace some culverts.

A temporary four-way stop was installed in spring 2022 at the intersection, which has been the scene of multiple crashes – almost 30 in less than a decade – including one that killed Natalie Williams, a 15-year-old passenger, on Oct. 26, 2020.

Sterling Township also cut rumble strips into the road leading up to the stop signs to warn drivers of the upcoming stop.

As a result of Williams’ death, IDOT moved evaluation of the intersection up on its priority list and determined that for safety and other reasons, a roundabout to slow traffic would be the best solution.

Plans call for a roundabout with a 14-foot-wide circulating single lane. The center of the roundabout and long splitter islands will deflect entering vehicles.

A 14-foot-wide concrete truck apron, just outside of the central island, will accommodate large trucks, farm equipment and emergency vehicles, allowing them to maneuver through the circle. Entering vehicles will yield to traffic circulating counterclockwise, and lighting will be installed around the roundabout, the agency said.

Before the four-way stop signs were installed, traffic on east-west-running Science Ridge Road had to stop for traffic on the busy, north-south-running Route 40. Drivers didn’t always stop, though, because they couldn’t see or misjudged the speed of oncoming traffic,

The four-way stop is not a good permanent solution, however, because over time, given the increase in traffic from nearby Wahl Clipper Corp. and by more residents in the area in general, wait times will get longer and longer, IDOT said.

Plus, it doesn’t solve the safety issue.

Roundabouts slow down vehicles to 20 to 24 mph and have fewer conflict points – places where vehicles can collide – at eight versus 32 for a typical intersection, IDOT said.

It will be Sterling’s third roundabout – the LeFevre Road/Lynn Boulevard roundabout was the first, opening in October 2020.

Many feared it would cause crashes to increase, but that didn’t happened, city officials said.

The Wallace Street/Avenue B roundabout will be the city’s second.

Wallace Street roundabout also coming this year

In August, the city began its $3 million project to realign Wallace Street to move it farther south from the railroad tracks.

It’s a key component of a more than $300 million multiphase riverfront redevelopment plan, and it includes the completion of the city’s second roundabout at Avenue B, which was started about five years ago then put on hold.

The roundabout will eliminate the T intersection and make it easier for traffic to exit the area should a train be blocking the Avenue B crossing.

There have been some construction delays because of supply chain issues, so the entire realignment project, which the city had hoped to finish by the end of this month, now will wrap up in late fall, Public Works Director Brad Schrader said.

When it’s done, Wallace will be the main road bringing visitors to the mixed-use park along the riverfront, which is the heart and soul of the Riverfront Reimagined project.

What’s up with First Avenue Bridge?

Utility upgrades have slowed the flow of traffic on the First Avenue Bridge for about a month, and there’s about another six weeks to go, a ComEd spokeswoman said.

Workers are replacing the wire configuration going across the Rock River and installing electrical and advance communications infrastructure under the bridge, Kristina Lynch, the company’s internal communications manager, said in an email.

The work has forced the closure of one lane on the west side of the span.

“This project will advance ComEd’s system resiliency. This new configuration will reduce the footprint of ComEd distribution facilities along the Rock River,” she said.

The work began June 19 on the Rock Falls side of the bridge and will finish around the end of September, Lynch said.

IDOT also closed one lane of the Avenue G/12th Avenue bridges for two months, from mid-April through June, to allow ComEd to upgrade its fiber optic system and add a new conduit, which the utility said will help it respond to outages more quickly.

Locust Street reconstruction humming along

The $6.3 million IDOT reconstruction of Locust Street/Route 40 from 14th to a little south of 25th streets, which started April 3, still is on track to finish by mid-October.

That stretch of Locust, which is a little less than a mile, runs north past the intersection with LeFevre Road, where CGH Medical Center sits, past Miller Road, which handles traffic from the CGH Main Clinic and Sterling High School, past the Kroger/CVS shopping center at St. Mary’s Road/23rd Street, which handles much of Newman Central Catholic High School’s traffic, and past the intersection with Lynn Boulevard, the bypass that brings people from the western side of town to both the Locust and East Lincolnway business districts.

What’s being done:

• 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.

• 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.