Joliet section of U.S. 30 to close for a month

A section of Plainfield Road, which is U.S. 30 coming through Joliet, will be shut down Monday and stay closed for more than a month for one of the city’s water main projects this summer.

Plainfield Road will be closed between Center and Taylor streets.

The area just east of the University of St. Francis is only about two blocks long, but lies along one of the major routes for motorists going into and coming out of downtown.

It is one of four major routes where lanes will be reduced or shut down altogether at some point this summer for the city’s ongoing water main replacement project.

Others are Caton Farm Road and Ingalls Avenue, where work already is underway, and Collins and Ottawa streets, where work has yet to begin.

Plainfield Road is scheduled to be reopened by Aug. 18. But traffic will continue to be affected by ongoing water main construction that is expected to be completed in late October.

Detour routes will be posted.

Joliet officials discussed the Plainfield Road closure Wednesday at a City Council meeting where council member Jan Quillman described the stretch as “such a heavily used area.”

Utilities Director Allison Swisher noted the project is one of the major corridors where traffic will be affected this summer by the city’s water main replacement project. Joliet is in the process of replacing all water mains built before 1970.

“We have a number of projects going on this summer that will affect major thoroughfares, and the first one is this Plainfield Road project,” Swisher said.

While the Caton Farm and Ingalls projects already are underway, they do not involve full and prolonged road closures.

Bill Baltz, deputy director for field operations in the Utilities Department, on Thursday provided an outlook on the four other water main projects along major roads.

Ingalls Avenue

“We’re trying to get Ingalls done before schools starts,” Baltz said, noting three schools along Ingalls could be affected by the project.

Those schools are Joliet Catholic Academy, Hufford Junior High and Taft Elementary. Baltz said the goal is to have the job done by the second week of August.

The Ingalls project has involved full road shutdowns while work takes place during the day, but the road is reopened at the end of the workday.

Caton Farm Road

The Caton Farm Road project started in June.

“On that one, we’re not doing full closure. It’s just one lane closure,” Baltz said.

The project stretches roughly from the Wedgewood Golf Course just west of Route 59 to past Drauden Road.

Downtown Joliet

Downtown work along Ottawa and Joliet streets will start once Plainfield Road is opened again.

The Ottawa Street work will close down one lane and include intermittent full closures, most likely during low traffic hours, Baltz said.

“We’ll be doing some night work,” Baltz said, noting the goal is full closures during those hours.

The estimated end date for Ottawa Street is Nov. 6.

Construction on Joliet Street starts in October, and is expected to run until at least the end of this year.

Collins Street

Work is scheduled to start Aug. 1 on Collins Street, and there will be a full road closure that is expected to run through the month of September because of work being done at the CN railroad tracks.

“We have to cross the railroad tracks on that one,” Baltz said. “When we do the bore under the railroad tracks, we have to do a full road closure.”

The plan is to close Collins between Chase and Ward avenues from Sept. 1 to Oct. 1.