Residents, merchants brace for Batavia bridge closing
BATAVIA -- Starting Thursday, this town will face a disruption the likes of which it has not seen in 96 years.
Workers from Illinois Constructors Corporation will close the Wilson Street Bridge, also known as the William J. Donovan Bridge, after the evening rush hour, only to reopen it March 4.
(Craig Watson/Staff Photographer)
This will be the first of two, 16-day complete closures needed during the overall 10-month project. For most of the $9.6 million bridge replacement project, the bridge will be open for two lanes of traffic.
The closing is worrying drivers who will have to motor north to the Fabyan Parkway bridge, or south to North Aurora, to cross the Fox River. But pedestrians and bicyclists will only have to go a few hundred feet south, to cross at the pedestrian bridge.
The pending bridge closure is giving downtown merchants some creative ideas for how to turn the disruption into something fun.
"A lot of the merchants are doing fun things," said Craig Foltos, owner of Foltos' Tonsorial Parlor, on the north side of Wilson Street just east of the bridge.
One of the promotions at Foltos' will include Brand New Socks Day, where customers who have to walk more than three blocks out of their way will get new socks. The theme at Foltos' is, "I'd Walk A Mile for a Foltos Haircut."
Last week, Foltos was out looking for a wheelbarrow he intends to use to chauffeur customers, rickshaw-style, to and from their cars.
"If this is the worst thing people have to go through, they'll be OK," he said. "Half the world doesn't even sit down to eat. They stoop, because they don't have chairs."
City officials decided to replace the bridge in 2000, after examination by engineers determined a full replacement was needed. The current bridge has been in place since 1911, when a new bridge replaced an old stone structure.
