Time-lapse cameras always deliver a certain sense of wonder, and a clip currently posted at www.washingtonunderpass.com will take you on a travelogue of the 2015 weather year.
When you click the “Photos” tab to watch progress on construction of a railroad bridge on Washington east of Lake Street, you see quick evidence of the early-spring snowfalls that plagued our existence. Then, right around the time the trees finally explode into bloom, the camera lens is dotted time and again with the raindrops that made June seem like April.
Toward the end of the 55-second clip, you finally start to see the first big signal of the major work to come: The asphalt path that will carry traffic around the work zone appears like magic. Soon, it will be time for crews to start digging away at what will be a much-needed underpass.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. According to the most recent update on the project, late-summer weather is among the issues holding up the opening of that bypass route, which at one point was slated to be open in late August.
“Work on the roadway runaround continues. The contractor began paving on (Aug. 31) but due to the rain over the previous weekend only a portion could be placed. Paving continued later in the week,” reads an update posted on Sept. 4. The progress report added that the runaround/bypass also “cannot be completed until the railroad completes the installation of the crossing signals” at the Canadian National Railway tracks.
South of that $35 million project — the second largest in Lake County Division of Transportation history, if you include the widening of Washington west of the underpass — there is also almost-but-not-quite-ready progress reported on the $13.5 million widening of Peterson Road from Route 83 to Alleghany Road.
In an update that also was posted on Sept. 4, the word was that the project had officially reached 50 percent completion — which, translated into motorists’ terms, means that the future westbound lanes are complete and traffic “is now traveling on the new pavement to allow for the construction of the future eastbound lanes.”
The update also noted that “the old pavement on Peterson is being removed, (and) this will be followed by completing the new storm sewer installations and grading for the new lanes.”
All of this can be taken as evidence that construction season blurs the line between summer and autumn, with work in these cases scheduled to extend beyond our recent 80-degree September days well into November.
Beyond that, we can all hope that winter will race by as quickly as a 55-second time-lapse video.
Twitter @NewsSunDanMoran
