DUNNING — Drivers who use Oak Park Avenue should find another way to get around Dunning for the next three months starting Monday, Ald. Tim Cullerton (38th) said.
Northbound Oak Park Avenue between Irving Park Road and Forest Preserve Drive will be closed until July 27 to allow city crews to rebuild the road as part of a project to avoid a repeat of severe floods that swept the area in April 2013.
The detour will send northbound traffic on Oak Park Avenue west to Irving Park Road, north to Harlem Avenue, east to Forest Preserve Drive and back to northbound Oak Park Avenue, Cullerton said.
Torrential rains in April 2013 turned streets in Dunning into gushing rivers and left two to three feet of water in residents' basements for weeks.
In addition to repaving Oak Park Avenue, the project will use $5 million from the Dunning Tax Increment Financing District add curbs, sidewalks and street lights, officials said.
In addition, the streetscape will include planters with open bottoms to allow stormwater to slowly seep into the ground, enclosed pits for trees, pavement that allows water to pass through it and bioswales, which are gently sloped ditches full of plants designed to remove silt and pollution from surface runoff water.
That part of the project will be funded by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's $50 million Green Stormwater Infrastructure Strategy, officials said.
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