News

Street work to start on Monroe

Madison residents will have the pleasure of driving around Camp Randall with ease next football season — after major construction concludes on Monroe and Regents streets and Randall Avenue.

The city of Madison engineering department will start resurfacing Monroe Street between Regent Street and Randall Avenue, including the intersection of Regent and Monroe, on May 5.

The corner of Monroe Street and Randall Avenue will be completely reconstructed by replacing sanitary, water main and storm sewer pipes under the road.

Randall Avenue between Dayton and Monroe streets will also be resurfaced.

Traffic on Monroe Street will be limited to one-way starting Monday and lasting through August. Regent will be open to two-way flow through the duration of construction.

Construction will amount to $670,000, according to Chris Petykowski, a project engineer for the city of Madison engineering department.

Petykowski said this area is in dire need of road improvement, especially the Monroe area, “one of the worst in the city.”

The city generally does not construct detour routes unless construction affects bike paths, he added.

“People don’t want the extra traffic going on residential streets, so usually people just kind of find their own way around it,” Petykowski said.

Summer and early fall are the only seasons possible for street resurfacing because asphalt is not available during winter months, Petykowski said.

Material does not set on the ground until the weather is warm and machines cannot dig into the ground if it is freezing, he said.

“We tried to schedule it so [the road] would be clear before football started,” Petykowski said. “Construction is scheduled to end about a month before football.”

A month into construction, Petykowski said work on the 500 and 600 blocks of State Street is on schedule to be complete by September.

So far, this $5 million project has dug up the roads to work on the pipes below ground. Work on sidewalks and aesthetic improvements to bike racks and benches will come later.

“So far, so good,” Petykowski said.