Neighbors Angered Over Four Mile Road Project

About a dozen neighbors living near the Four Mile Road underpass project registered their frustration with the at a meeting Tuesday night.

No action was taken, but several village board members and neighbors asked the village engineer if anything could be done to open the road back up.

John Longo, 3112 Four Mile Road, expressed his frustration with the road being closed for six months with little work being done.

"If you’re not going to work on it, I think it should be re-bid, or cover it up and forget the underpass," Longo said.

Village President Ron Coutts explained the need for the overpass saying that We Energies expects to have two to four trains with 150 to 180 cars each in a 24-hour period, which has blocked traffic on Douglas Avenue. The underpass project includes building a bridge over the road so the train can go over the road. The Village closed the road in October.

"Yes it's not moving very fast because we've had to deal with the Post Office, we've had to deal with the railroad and it's not easy," Coutts said. "I know it hasn't been easy and it's been causing some problems."

Kevin Wanggaard said he wondered if the road couldn't be opened back up if there wasn't any significant work being done.

"If we run into it being closed for three or four months with no activity then we need to do something," he said.

But Mike Hayek, the village engineer, told the Board that it could be two to three weeks before any excavation could take place because they had six items to work through and four had been completed.

One of the hold ups included Union Pacific changing the track shift, which resulted in the project being redesigned and the Village is now waiting for the plans to be approved, Hayek said.

"Now their union forces will not be laying the railroad ties, the ballast and the steel track, that's a $1 million job that was just dropped on me last week," Hayek said. "We are now designing it to get that done and it will be in the paper next week."

Hayek also warned the Board about opening up the road and said he didn't recommend doing that for liability reasons.

"The liability is there... if you re-open that road and someone gets hurt, it's absolutely on the Board's shoulders," Hayek said.