Coming in November: Four Lanes on Route 64

Those who make periodic commutes through St. Charles’ East Main Street corridor have sweated construction and the associated traffic congestion for months.

The bad news is the project’s is not scheduled for completion until late next summer or fall.

The good news is there will be a reprieve.

The St. Charles City Council, which met Monday evening as its own Government Service Committee, learned that the Illinois Department of Transportation will require the contractor to cease activity and open four lanes of traffic on the roadway by mid-November.

City Engineering Division Manager Jim Bernahl told the aldermen that work on the massive project is on schedule, although officials had hoped, because of the dry summer, to actually be ahead of schedule at this point. But there have been delays, mostly due to scheduling with private utility companies — cable and phone companies for instance — to coordinate the work they need to get done in conjunction with the over all project.

Bernahl said the project goal is that by mid-November, the contractor will have completed work on the south side of Route 64 as it did on the north side. Regardless of whether that happens, he said, the roadway will open to four lanes of traffic by mid-November.

The down side is that construction — and lane closures — will resume in the spring, but next season is supposed to be the final season of construction of the $49 million reconstruction project, which is scheduled for completion late next summer or fall.

The project encompasses 5.1 miles of Route 64 from Route 59 in DuPage County to 7th Avenue in St. Charles, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation's project website.

Route 64 is being rebuilt and widened from 7th Avenue to Dunham Road. IDOT’s plans include adding a center turn lane and drainage improvements, replacing the shoulders with new curbs and gutters and modernizing and interconnecting the traffic signals.

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