Published: May 14, 2008 10:15 am      

Fairchild Subway project would cost $41 million

Preliminary results from a streets corridor study show it would cost about $41 million for engineering and construction to build Fairchild Street over the deteriorating Fairchild Subway.

The cost includes $18 million in Bowman Avenue improvements, including railroad crossing grade separation structures to provide uninterrupted traffic flow.

The consulting firm, URS Corp., presented its findings at a second and final public meeting Tuesday night for this study.

Martin Street resident Noel Woods said he doesn’t know where the city will find the funding, but improvements to the Fairchild Subway are a long time coming.

“It’s a project that needed to be done 25 years ago,” he said. “It’s been needed corrected a long time ago.”

The corridor study is a spin-off of the Fairchild Subway structure study. It is evaluating Fairchild as a corridor and comparing it to other alternatives.

URS last year reported preliminary cost estimates of $3.7 million to $7.2 million to replace the Fairchild Subway’s retaining walls.

Officials are seeing signs of further wall displacement, in addition to the subway’s continuing deterioration in the form of falling concrete.

The firm selected Fairchild Street as the “preferred alternate” for street and rail crossing improvements that will insure uninterrupted traffic flow between critical origins and destinations for police, fire, medical and other emergency response vehicles as well as the motoring public.

Fairchild Street is the most cost effective to rehabilitate, with the subway then being filled in. Fairchild Street already is four lanes west of the existing subway and east of Bowman.

Improvements to Fairchild limit the impacts due to street widening to the area between Rogers Street and Bowman, which is about 1,900 feet, URS reports. The other east-west corridors have lengths between 5,100 feet and 6,600 feet.

The Voorhees, Williams and Seminary corridors would require improvements within the entire study limits from Illinois Route 1 east to Bowman. Projections indicate that future traffic will warrant a four-lane street, URS reports.

These corridors contain a significant amount of residential areas and numerous churches, schools and parklands.

URS officials say Fairchild Street improvements have minimum impact to property and environment when compared to the other alternates.

The costs for improvements to the other corridors, including bridge work and widening streets, are estimated at: $48 million for Voorhees Street, $57 million for Williams Street and $55 million for Seminary Street.

“Dollars will dictate the (timeline),” URS Corp. senior project manager Jim Marty said about the Fairchild Subway improvements.

Public Works Director Doug Ahrens said the city must first finish Winter Avenue and then the Voorhees Street bridge project, before starting Fairchild Subway improvements.

“We hope to identify money for planning soon,” he said. “Obviously, we’ll be looking for outside funding because of the magnitude of the project.”

City Engineer David Schnelle said the city can start to look at elevation changes and other impacts with the project. He said it’s physically impossible to build four lanes under the six sets of railroad tracks now above the subway.

Marty said the study is expected to be completed by the end of June. The firm will further review public comments that re-sult from this public meeting. URS Corp. then will submit a completed report to city officials next month for review.

The corridor study is funded through the Danville Area Transportation Study.



FYI

Written comments can be sent by June 2 about the streets corridor study to: URS Corp., 345 E. Ash Ave., Suite B, Decatur, IL 62526. Attn. James Marty P.E.

Include name, address and phone number.