Construction has been completed on what Village President David Pope called “the first new brick streets laid in Illinois” in 60 years.
The 700 and 800 blocks of South Humphrey Avenue and the 900 and 1000 blocks of South Wenonah Avenue are now paved with brick. Response to the new streets seems to be mostly positive and this fall the Oak Park village board will debate whether to finance more brick streets.
Jim Budrick, Oak Park’s longtime village engineer, said the four blocks of brick streets cost $560,000 more than asphalt to install. The additional money for the bricks came from savings from previous projects in the Capital Improvement Fund.
Pope said that despite the larger installation costs, the longer lifespan of the bricks means that over the entire life of the street surface the costs compare favorably with asphalt. Bricks are flipped over 60 years after installation and replaced after 100 years, while asphalt must be ground down and replaced every 15 years. In addition, Pope said that because oil is a base material for asphalt, its rising costs bring up the price of asphalt with it.
Humphrey Avenue residents said they are happy with their new bricks. “I love them,” said Tim McCoy of 805 S. Humphrey. “They’re beautiful. I hope they do more.”
Deborah Spector of 741 S. Humphrey agreed. The bricks are “nice and charming,” she said. But, she added, “they took a long time” to install.
McCoy was not entirely positive, either. “I was hoping they’d be a little bumpier to slow cars down,” he said.
Gail Moran, who does not live on a brick street but is the vice president of the Oak Park Cycling Club, said she is concerned that “if the major routes become brick, it’s a problem” for bicyclists.
Local cyclists and village officials are at work on a bike plan, and Moran said she hopes that “from the bike plan we are able to establish some bike routes through Oak Park and avoid those streets becoming brick at least on the bike lane.” Some communities, she said, have solved the problem posed by brick streets by raising a concrete bike lane on the side of the street.
Pope said he had received “an exceptionally positive response from the community regarding the new streets,” and defended the brick streets as a way to slow down drivers. “They’ve been shown to improve community safety by slowing automotive traffic,” he said. “They send a visual signal to drivers that they are in a neighborhood and not at the Indy 500.”
This fall, village trustees will discuss whether to allot money for more brick streets. The only streets that would be eligible for bricks, Pope said, are those that would be torn up for new sewer and water lines anyway.