Residents Give Their Two Cents on Main Street Construction

The first of four public meetings was held Wednesday evening to gather information on what Sussex residents would like to see after Main Street is reconstructed.

Project managers from the design team visited the to give hourly presentations from 4-7 p.m. and take public input. They went through slides of the construction zone, which ranges between Locust Street and Waukesha Avenue.

After their ten-minute pitch, residents were encouraged to place round stickers on a huge map to indicate problem areas on Main Street.  Each sticker had a number on it, so residents could write what the problem is and associate it with a certain sticker.

Some concerns residents have are:

• Why is a reconstruction project even happening?
• Can the village reuse things like the streetlights to keep costs down?
• The intersection of Main Street and Silver Spring Drive is awkward and somewhat of a hazard. Others disagreed that the intersection should be rerouted to resemble a traditional intersection.
• There are problems with parking at the and corner gas station.
• The entrances/exits are tough to navigate on the busy road.
• There were concerns about possibly having to reroute the two streams that intersect Main Street.

Matt Bednarski, the project manager, gave the quick presentation and told residents about the tentative time-line, what the village has done so far and what residents can expect. He said this is a huge project that will hopefully give Sussex an image.

“This street will help define the identity of Sussex,” Bednarksi said. “This will be the entrance from the east, and it will be something people remember. The street will be a major reconstruction project and probably the biggest for generations.”

Bednarski said some of the elements of the finished street would be:

• Benches and other amenities
• New street lighting
• Pedestrian accommodations
• Connections to the Bugline Trail
• Improvements to things like water and sewer
• Aesthetic improvements
• Burying overhead utilities, like power lines
• Improvement and possible relocation of intersecting streams

Village trustee Jason Wegner attended the meeting, looked over the map and talked with citizens about improvements to the street.

“My main focus for this project, at least, is to reconstruct this road to feature businesses,” Wegner said. “Then we have the grounds to attract businesses on our most used street, get the taxes from that, and hopefully build other things around Sussex.”

Time-line

The village has already done extensive research on Main Street, including a study in 2003, and again in 2011. However, now the real work begins.

The remainder of 2011 will be gathering information from residents. The design team will then begin to create mock-ups and possible alternatives in 2012, followed by construction plans in 2013. Actual construction is slated to start in 2015 and last for three years.

Updates on the construction will soon be available on the village website.