Shutting down Riverside Drive for two years wasn’t a flippant decision.
The road is getting major improvements while the Gathering Place is built. City Engineer Paul Zachary compares it to an upcoming total closure on Apache Street.
"We're raising the road there right at 7 feet or 8 feet, and that closure's going to be a five- or six-month closure just on its own," Zachary said. "And it's not going to be complete until October of next year, so a total closure is not just due to the park. It's due to the realignment and the work adjacent to it."
The two-year total closure of Riverside Drive during construction of the Gathering Place was also partly to stop trail access.
"We had folks in wheelchairs, bicycles, everybody in that outside lane, and we ended up having a gate cut almost every night to get access to the trails," Zachary said. "So, it really made it to where if you provided vehicle access, you were going to have pedestrians and you were going to have bicycles."
Things seem to be going OK so far when it comes to getting drivers on alternate routes.
"We're going to do all the signage we can. We've already changed timing on traffic signals on Peoria," Zachary said. "And, quite honestly, compared to the hundreds of complaints we got when Lewis was closed over I-44, we've got 12."
Riverside Drive is closed between 26th and 41st Streets until 2017.
