Contractors who’ve begun demolition on the easternmost portions of West Lafayette’s State Street redesign now want permission to close the busiest intersection on the road for a couple nights in early May.
West Lafayette City Engineer Ed Garrison Tuesday received approval from the city’s Board of Public Works for two noise ordinance exceptions so the corner of State Street and River Road could be shuttered for underground pipe to be laid.
“I would like to consider it low-impact noise," Garrison says. "It’s work they can do at night that can allow for daytime work that’ll be noisy and everything else.”
The intersection is slated to be closed starting around 7 p.m. on the nights of Monday, May 7 and Tuesday, May 8. It’ll reopen at 6 a.m. the following mornings.
Garrison says he’s not sure if businesses – particularly restaurants in the area -- were surveyed about whether they preferred the two nightly closures or a shifting of road lanes so crews could do the work during normal, daylight hours.
He says he doesn’t think the complete closure of the intersection is a result of utility work not getting done in the first quarter of the year, as originally scheduled, but he told the Board it’s reasonable to expect several noise ordinance variances will come before them in the remaining eight months of the year.
“The majority of the noise ordinances, we don’t even know if it’s going to happen," he says. "But if it does come up, we want it to be something that can be handled right away and approved, yes or no.”
About a week after the intersection is closed, the stretch of State Street through the Purdue University campus will be shuttered – a closure slated to last for most of the school’s summer recess.
