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Months-Long Shutdown of Route 34 between Monmouth & Galesburg

ReubenGBrewer – Wikimedia Commons

The Illinois Department of Transportation said that beginning Monday, April 16, it will close all four lanes of U.S. Route 34 from Illinois 164 east of Monmouth to Main Street in Galesburg to make improvements.  The project is scheduled to last into October.

IDOT said crews will work on a 7.5 mile stretch of the road from Illinois 164 to west of Cameron Road.  The work will include:

  • Pavement resurfacing
  • Pavement patching
  • Repairing and replacing guard rails
  • A bridge repair
  • Drainage improvements

Kelsea Gurski, Bureau Chief, Communication Services, Office of Communications at IDOT, said there are a couple reasons why the agency is shutting down the entire road instead of doing just two lanes at a time.

“In order to get the project completed within this construction season we needed a full closure.  If we were to stage this and require cross-over traffic, that would add several weeks -- if not months -- to the project, which would mean we would be working on the road into next construction season as well,” Gurski said.

“And safety was also a strong consideration with this project.  The way we would have had to configure traffic to go through this work zone (should we have kept it open) was causing some safety concerns as we looked at the design.”

The recommended detour will direct traffic to Illinois 164.

The estimated cost of the work is around $13 million.

Rich is TSPR's News Director.