27th Street work falling farther behind schedule

Work on one of Lincoln’s main thoroughfares — 27th Street — has fallen far behind schedule, detouring traffic around the Country Club Neighborhood longer than expected.
Lincoln Electric System has been working in the area since mid-July to bury power lines from South Street to Calvert Street, detouring 27th Street traffic from about 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays. Originally, work was to be done by Thanksgiving, then mid-December. Now, it could be 2011 before work wraps up.
LES Construction Supervisor Dave Brozak said workers ran into problems in the Van Dorn intersection. Earlier on, they also had difficulty finding accurate infrastructure records in the historic area.
The City Council directs LES to spend about a million dollars per year burying power lines — which cuts down on downed power lines during storms and visual clutter.
Other cable, gas and phone lines are also being buried on 27th Street, and so sometimes the workers out there are not LES’s.
LES will also be upgrading from wood poles to steel poles fed by underground wires on 27th Street from South Street to Calvert Street.