Posted: Dec. 13, 2009

Muskego — As the year 2010 is rushing up, Muskego officials have officially put off fixing one of the two worst streets in the city for a year.

City planners knew that reconstructing Durham Drive next year would be an ambitious goal, so pushing the project back to 2011 was expected, city engineer David Simpson said.

Durham has a road condition rating of three out of a possible 10, Simpson said. That is the lowest in the city, except for a relatively sleepy section of Tans Drive, which also is a 3, he said. Tans is scheduled to be done in 2012, Simpson said.

But Durham is a heavily used arterial that will now be rebuilt in 2011 from McShane Drive to North Cape Drive.

It will be torn down to the dirt and rebuilt slightly wider than its current 22 feet width plus gravel shoulders to be 24 feet across plus paved shoulders.

The roughly $4.7 million project also includes adding an 8-foot wide bike path mainly on the east side of the street. It will connect with an existing path on part of the west side of the street and with a subdivision path.

The new bike path will make it possible to ride north all the way to Target store in New Berlin, 4798 S. Moorland Road, and the Long Range Park Plan has the path going south to the Loomis Road bike path that goes all the way to Wind Lake.

Currently, designers are looking into how best to smooth out a curve in the road near High View Drive. There are several options, Simpson said, but some environmental concerns must be worked around.

In addition, a decision is still to be made as to whether to bring sanitary sewer service to a section of the road near Schultz Lane. Much of the rest of the road is already served by sanitary sewer service, Simpson said.

Storm sewers will be added, as needed along the entire stretch, he said.

 

- Jane Ford-Stewart