Spring Break
Polk Avenue redesigned
The redesign is part of the city's plan to improve Charleston
Erin Miller/ City editor
Issue date: 4/21/05 Section: News
The Charleston City Council hired an engineer to redesign Polk Avenue from Sixth to Division streets.
The upgrade of Polk Avenue is part of the city's comprehensive plan to improve Charleston, and it wants another east-west street other than Lincoln Avenue, Mayor Dan Cougill said.
"We want to upgrade Polk Avenue because it is bumpy," Cougill said.
The cost of an engineer is about $20,000, and the engineer will help determine if additional land needs to be purchased from homeowners to make the road wider, he said.
Polk Avenue is currently 40 feet wide from the back of the sidewalks and will be about 26 feet wide not including the sidewalks, Cougill said.
"It will improve not only vehicle traffic but pedestrian traffic," he said.
The city chose to hire Consolidated Services of Coles County, which submitted a bid to the city when the council first looked into redesigning Polk Avenue, Cougill said.
"The original design was a wider street, and that required the city to purchase more property," said Mike Sullivan, owner of the engineering company. "They hired us to revise the original design in order to make (the street) a little more narrow, so (the city) doesn't have to purchase so much right of way."
Along with determining what land needs to be purchased, an engineer determines sidewalk location, tree removal and the complete setup for project specifications, Sullivan said.
"We take (the city's) initial design, and we generate a set of engineering drawings suitable for construction, and the city then takes those drawings to contractors," he said.
Construction will ideally begin in spring 2006, after graduation and classes are done at Eastern so it does not interfere, Cougill said.
The upgrade of Polk Avenue is part of the city's comprehensive plan to improve Charleston, and it wants another east-west street other than Lincoln Avenue, Mayor Dan Cougill said.
"We want to upgrade Polk Avenue because it is bumpy," Cougill said.
The cost of an engineer is about $20,000, and the engineer will help determine if additional land needs to be purchased from homeowners to make the road wider, he said.
Polk Avenue is currently 40 feet wide from the back of the sidewalks and will be about 26 feet wide not including the sidewalks, Cougill said.
"It will improve not only vehicle traffic but pedestrian traffic," he said.
The city chose to hire Consolidated Services of Coles County, which submitted a bid to the city when the council first looked into redesigning Polk Avenue, Cougill said.
"The original design was a wider street, and that required the city to purchase more property," said Mike Sullivan, owner of the engineering company. "They hired us to revise the original design in order to make (the street) a little more narrow, so (the city) doesn't have to purchase so much right of way."
Along with determining what land needs to be purchased, an engineer determines sidewalk location, tree removal and the complete setup for project specifications, Sullivan said.
"We take (the city's) initial design, and we generate a set of engineering drawings suitable for construction, and the city then takes those drawings to contractors," he said.
Construction will ideally begin in spring 2006, after graduation and classes are done at Eastern so it does not interfere, Cougill said.
The Daily Eastern News encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. The DEN also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.
Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.
Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.
If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to our Online Editor at DENNews.com@gmail.com.