HOBART | The start of the workweek Monday also will be the official start of the 61st Avenue road construction project, city officials said.

Once started, the entire project is expected to take 18 months translating to road closures and detours for at least five months of that period, Assistant Fire Chief Steve Mast said.

"The contractors will be working on the bridge and widening the road all at the same time. There will be a flurry of activity," Mast said Tuesday.

The $6.9 million project calls for widening and improvements to 61st Avenue starting at Marcella Boulevard on the west and ending just east of Colorado Street, City Engineer Steve Truchan said.

Work at the 61st Avenue/Colorado Street intersection, starting east of Liverpool Road, will entail building a 16-foot wide, 8-foot tall concrete culvert-style bridge over a dipped portion of the roadway, Truchan said.

The 61st Avenue bridge construction site will begin roughly at the Elks Club and continue east past the Colorado Street intersection, he said.

That portion of the construction site will be closed to all traffic for about five months.

Other improvements to 61st Avenue will include adding new storm sewers, streetlights and curbs, he said.

City officials have made provisions for emergency crews who need to get to St. Mary Medical Center east of the project on 61st Avenue and Ind. 51, Mast said.

Emergency crews will be allowed to go around the closure by entering the western side of Amber Creek subdivision, which is north of the Colorado Street/61st Avenue intersection, he said.

The crews will then re-enter farther east on 61st Avenue at a street that would take them beyond the construction area, he said.

In addition, St. Mary Medical physicians also will be given a placard which will allow them passage around the closure provided it is for an emergency, police Lt. Steve Houck said.

"If a doctor is on an emergency run he or she can get through also. ... If others try and get through they'll be ticketed," Houck said.

The bulk of the 18-month project will be completed this year with some of the work, such as the striping, finished in 2009, HNTB Corp. project engineer Ted Behrens said.

Behrens and Truchan said the decision to close the intersection for several months while work is going on was made several years ago to decrease the cost of the project.