Railroad crossing on North 8th Street in Clear Lake to be repaired next week

CLEAR LAKE — The railroad crossing on North 8th Street in Clear Lake will be permanently repaired next week. Repairs were made earlier this year to the crossing, but a cold-mix asphalt patch was used, resulting in there being a sizable bump for motorists at the tracks.

The city’s public works director Jeremy Korenberg says crews will start work on that Monday morning.  “We have a contractor that will come in and replace the concrete. We’re actually going to do some more removals to make that transition better. He believes he can get it done hopefully in a day, or removed and replaced all in one day. Then we’re probably looking at a 48-hour cure based on talking with Heartland, who then needs to come in and do a two-foot asphalt buffer between our concrete and the railroad’s portion. They require that as part of their standards. Once that’s rolled, we’ll be able to open it. So weather pending, it could be a three to four day closure.”

Korenberg says they are also going to work on the sidewalk at the crossing.  “They did some removals in the sidewalk area. We discussed, we had met as part of it, just to remove a little bit more sidewalk and then make that portion actually ADA compliant similar to Buddy Holly Place.  What they had removed, we had to get another four or five feet back to put the detectable warnings in to make it actually compliant with the railroad crossing. Considering it was already removed, removing four more feet each way and putting the detectable warnings in seemed like a no-brainer, so that will be taken care of as part of that as well.”

Korenberg says they had to wait until Heartland Asphalt started up their asphalt plant for the construction season before making the repairs. It’s not their fault, but their plant hadn’t opened up, I think they are opening up this week getting it up and running.  With the requirement of that asphalt, we were just kind of sitting and waiting.”

Korenberg made his comments earlier this week to the Clear Lake City Council.