Harlem Roadwork Begins

"Like taxes and dental work," Oak Leaves reporter Bill Dwyer writes, "street repairs are a painful fact of life."

And how.

The Illinois Department of Transportation is starting a $3.9 million, six-mile repaving project for Harlem Avenue that promises summer traffic headaches for the already cramped thoroughfare.

Crews have started on a stretch of Harlem Avenue in North Riverside and will work their way north in phases until work wraps up in Norridge. Right now, it's unclear when the repair work will be performed on the stretch of Harlem that touches Forest Park, Oak Park and River Forest, but suffice it to say that it will be sometime this summer, and it will be all sorts of inconvenient.

An IDOT spokesman said the work will require daytime lane closures, but access to businesses and residences will be maintained. 

A "construction update report" on the IDOT website estimates the entire project will be completed in Sept. 2012, but an IDOT official told Oak Leaves said it could be all be done earlier if municipalities allow crews to work at night.