Tuesday night’s combined Danville City Council Public Works and Public Services Committee meeting included some concerns from the city engineering staff. First of all, a request to adjust the truck weight limit on the downtown portion of Vermilion between Main and Harrison was passed. City Engineer Sam Cole says it was a matter of making the right adjustment, making a realistic limit, and getting it on state records.
AUDIO: There were already truck restrictions there, but it simply prohibited truck traffic or limited it to one ton, which your average car wouldn’t pass. So we actually increased the weight limit a little bit. We don’t want large trucks or tandems or things like that going through that area. But we also want to allow pickup trucks, and things of that nature that may need to go through there.
Meanwhile, a request has been approved for Danville to apply for a state Main Street grant that would help the area bordered by Madison Street on the North, Franklin on the West, Washington on the East, and Main Street on the south. Cole says, the city may not get an answer on this until next summer, but it would be a nice asset, as the grant could be as high as three million dollars. And this would apply to lots of streets within that area.
AUDIO: Jackson Street, Hazel Street, Madison, Harrison, Walnut Street; we’re really looking at the whole area. The downtown is not incredibly walkable in some areas; it’s not necessarily well lit. And we’re trying to create that environment where people feel safe, and they want to come downtown and experience that.
Also approved was an application for a grant that would come from both the U.S. and Illinois Environmental Protection Agencies. Cole says, this would help with qualifying environmental projects.
AUDIO: They’re sites that had a use that likely would have caused comtamination; like a gas station or a laundromat or some other commercial business use. We typically deplay those grants to do site investigations to look at what kind of contaminants might be present, do drilling on the site to see what is actually present, and then ultimately try to put together a plan to clean up the site if it needs it, and then get it ready for redevelopment.
Cole says the city will probably also not get an answer on that request until mid-2022.
