More than 25,000 cars will need to find a new route through Fayetteville this summer, as the state Department of Transportation anticipates closing Route 5, the main thoroughfare through the village, for about a month.
The state will be replacing a culvert over Bishop’s Brook this summer. The official detour will keep drivers off Route 5, taking them to Green Lakes Road in Mycenae, swooping around to North Manlius Road and coming out by the Fayetteville Fire Department. That route is about six miles of road, whereas the direct route is about four.
The state and village anticipate drivers will be making their way through the more residential, local routes. With thousands of cars needing to find a new place to go, residents of Brookside Lane petitioned the village to put up two new stop signs at the intersection of Brookside and Kessler lanes.
Those signs were installed last week. Mayor Mark Olson said residents have been seeing an uptick in cars using that area as a cut-through, anyway, and expects the traffic to increase in the residential neighborhood once the state’s project begins. He plans to have village DOT employees monitor the neighborhood for the first week of construction.
“We’re confident the state has put together a good plan but we’re going to monitor for the first week just to make sure,” Olson said.
The project is expected to get started in July. It goes to bid May 17, said Gene Cilento, of the state DOT. The road will be closed for at least four weeks as workers replace the culvert, which allows the water from Bishop’s Brook to stream beneath the road.
