Dunelanders accustomed to using 1100N to get into and out of town are being urged, if at all possible, to find an alternate route.

On Wednesday, general contractor G.E. Marshall will close the westbound lane of 1100N between Ind. 49 and 100E, as part of the South Calumet District project, Chesterton Town Engineer Mark O’Dell told the Chesterton Tribune this morning.

All motorists will be shunted to the eastbound lane of 1100N, on the south side of the road, where there will be sufficient room to maintain a single lane of traffic in each direction, O’Dell said.

But congestion and long waits are expected along that stretch of 1100N for the foreseeable future. O’Dell advised motorists “to be extremely cautious in that area.”

1100N is being widened and re-graded.

As recently as Monday night, when the Town Council met, O’Dell believed that work would not begin along 1100N until later this week or even next Monday, but O’Dell said today that G.E. Marshall has decided to move up its time table.

Meanwhile, O’Dell told the council that he and Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg have submitted two major paving projects to the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission for the second round of federal stimulus funding:

•East Porter Ave. between Ind. 49 and C.R. 250E.

•Both sides of 23rd Street between 1100N and Marquette Road. The east side of the road belongs properly to Chesterton, the west side to Porter. For its part, the Town of Porter is applying for federal funding to pave both sides of Woodlawn Ave. between Waverly Road and the town limits, another street which falls into both jurisdictions.

O’Dell said that he is also asking NIRPC to fund the upgrade of seven traffic signals in town: four along Indian Boundary Road and three others, at Broadway and Fourth Street, South Calumet Road and Porter Ave., and South Calumet Road and Broadway.

In addition, O’Dell said, the town is seeking funds to replace 198 stop and yield signs at various locations in town, in response to a federal mandate requiring new traffic signage.

O’Dell told the Tribune after the meeting that the town could receive an estimated $453,000 in this second round of stimulus funding.

Members voted 4-0 to approve an expenditure, not to exceed $20,000, to engineering firm DLZ to assist the town is submitting the application package. President Jeff Trout, R-2nd, was not in attendance.

In other business, members voted 4-0 to authorize O’Dell to go out to bid for the Fifth Street sidewalk project.

The council has previously earmarked $85,000 in CEDIT funds to fund that sidewalk, which will extend south from 1100N along the west side of Fifth Street to Hunters Court in the Tanglewood subdivision.

O’Dell also told the council that specifications have been finalized for the two outbuildings planned for the new 15th Street municipal building—a cold-storage facility for vehicles and equipment not currently in seasonal use as well as a salt-storage facility—and that those specs should go out to bid later this week.

O’Dell said that he’s hopeful specs for the main municipal building will go out to bid early in April.

O’Dell is still trying to pave the way with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the replacement of the boardwalk and bridge in Coffee Creek Park damaged during the floods of September 2008.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded the town funding for a new boardwalk and bridge but the bureaucracy involved in doing work in a wetland has sidetracked the project.

The U.S. Army Corps wanted a wetland delineation before signing off on the project. In fact the whole area is a wetland, O’Dell said, but he’s written to the Corps notifying it that the project will have no impact on the area.

O’Dell has also notified IDEM that a 150-ton crane will be brought on site in order to drop the new bridge into place.

Posted 3/9/2010