JACKSON INTERSECTION PROGRESSES

JACKSON -- The intersection of East Main Street and Shawnee Boulevard should be reopened the week after next, Jackson Public Works Director Jim Roach says.

The busy intersection has been closed since the beginning of July for widening improvements and installation of a 10-inch water line. The new intersection will have a right-turn lane on northbound Shawnee. Workers also are constructing a large box culvert over the drainage stream at the intersection.

Closing the intersection has made it necessary for vehicles going north on Shawnee to detour to Brandom, Kies Avenue, East Main, Tracey Street and Woodland before returning to Shawnee.

The work on the intersection is part of a larger $1 million road-building project that began last fall and will connect two separate stretches of East Main. The new one-mile section of East Main will run from Shawnee east to Lacey Street when completed in October. The cost is being paid through a transportation sales tax.

The roadway east from Lacey Street to Oak Hill Road was completed a few years ago.

The city hopes the state then will help build the remaining two miles of road from Oak Hill to a proposed interchange at Interstate 55.

Roach said the biggest inconvenience during the work on the intersection has been to residents who live nearby. A couple of apartment buildings are in the construction zone.

"I think they understand we're moving pretty swiftly through it," he said.

The city originally intended to close the intersection during August but moved up the schedule because school starts in mid-August and a number of golf events are scheduled during the month at nearby Bent Creek Golf Course.