Paving delays are just the beginning

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Excavated landscape at the entrance lanes on Route 20 at Route 31 interchange display work being done on Elgin roadways this summer. July 11, 2011 | Michael Smart~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: July 15, 2011 3:39PM

ELGIN — Fifty years and six months after what was then called “the U.S. 20 Bypass” opened on Elgin’s south side, the city council decided last May to shelve an idea to convert the high-speed roadway into an “urban highway” with numerous cross streets and business connections.

So at least for the next few years, Route 20 will remain a divided, controlled-access highway for the six miles it runs through Elgin.

But some big changes — and more construction headaches for drivers — are in store over the next three or four years, mostly focusing on a total redesign of the congested interchange that connects Route 20 with McLean Boulevard.

The spring backups

Drivers along Route 20 have been frustrated over the past four months by backups as the road is being repaved and slightly widened over the 1.2 miles just beyond the western end of the controlled-access section. From about Longcommon Parkway to Plank Road on Elgin’s west side, a contractor hired by the Illinois Department of Transportation has been adding turn lanes here and there, coordinating the stoplights at Nesler Road and Plank, breaking up the old asphalt and laying down new asphalt. Often, the work has backed up traffic as flaggers limit flow to one lane serving both directions, or even closed the road entirely for a few minutes while heavy equipment did its thing.

IDOT spokesman Guy Tridgell said the paving is expected to be essentially done by July 20, with minor landscaping and signal work to continue for a few weeks after that.

Digging in

Another source of aggravation to drivers who get onto or off of 20 from Route 31 is not actually a Route 20 project at all. This work, which has been occasionally interfering with traffic along Route 31 at the interchange and along the exit ramp for westbound 20, began in March but is actually part of a much larger city of Elgin sewer project.

Called the “Lord Street Basin Sewer Separation Project, Phase I” the $4.8 million effort aims to divide ancient combined sewer pipes in that neighborhood that now carry all kinds of waste water. New concrete pipes, up to 8 feet in diameter, are being installed to carry storm water from as far west as Gertrude Street to the Fox River just north of the Route 20 bridge. That will allow the original pipes to carry only sanitary sewage across the river to a Fox River Water Reclamation District treatment plant.

City Water Director Kyla Jacobsen said the aim is to prevent household waste water laden with germs and pollutants from overflowing, untreated, into the river whenever a rainstorm overloads the combined sewers. The project also should help keep southwest-side basements from flooding and reduce the load on FRWRD’s treatment plant.

Jacobsen said a pit has been dug right alongside the exit ramp from westbound Route 20 to Route 31, and that will be used as the launching point to tunnel the new storm sewer under Route 31.

Last week was an especially trying time for drivers at the interchange, as contractors had to dig a hole in the middle of Route 31 to move some water pipes and telephone lines out of the way. But Jacobsen said the work is wrapping up in the Routes 20/31 interchange area and is beginning to move westward along Adams Street toward Gertrude, which will remain closed to through traffic until the about the end of October. Parts of Homer Street and Orange Street also will be affected. And a Phase II is coming next year, affecting mainly Elm Street.

For more details, see www.lordstreetbasin.org.

Much more to come

In a few weeks the traffic problems caused by the western repaving and the Route 31-area sewer work may seem like “the good old days” to drivers along Route 20.

Tridgell said IDOT officials recently let an $8.6 million contract to repave the entire six-mile controlled-access stretch, from Shales Parkway on the east to Randall Road on the west, and to repair all the bridges in that stretch, except for the ones over McLean Boulevard. The paving will begin in August and continue through the fall.

And all that paving will be just a prelude to IDOT’s grand effort for Route 20, which is to rework the whole interchange between Route 20 and McLean Boulevard into a new layout designed to reduce traffic backups. Tridgell said that work will start in September or October and will continue through the 2012, 2013 and maybe part of the 2014 construction seasons.

It will cost an eye-popping $53.9 million, with the money coming from Gov. Pat Quinn’s “Illinois Jobs Now!” capital construction program, whose package of new taxes and fees was approved by the Illinois Supreme Court this week.

“The interchange with McLean now is a standard diamond design,” Tridgell said. “When this is done, it will be a design called a single-point urban interchange.”

Basically, he said, the new design will have all the entrance and exit ramps from Route 20 curve inward to focus at one spot beneath the McLean underpass, controlled by just one set of traffic signals. The current diamond-shaped set of on and off ramps requires two sets of traffic signals to control the flow, so theoretically, drivers should see shorter waits for red lights along McLean and smaller backups into Route 20’s traffic lanes from the McLean exit ramps.

McLean also will be widened into a four-lane divided highway between Lillian Street and Fleetwood Drive, with turning lanes at each intersection. Sidewalk/bike paths will be added along both sides of McLean. The traffic signals along McLean at Lillian, Route 20 and Fleetwood will be modernized and interconnected with each other to minimize drivers’ need to stop for more than one red light. The aging bridges carrying Route 20 over McLean will be torn down and replaced.

Weld Road woes

One price to pay for all this will be elimination of the easy access to Route 20’s frontage road, Weld Road, for drivers going to or from the north along McLean. The present entrance and exit ramps onto Weld from McLean will be eliminated. Anyone bound for Weld from McLean will have to turn west onto Fleetwood Drive, then north onto Shepard Drive to get to Weld.

For drivers coming from the south, that will make little difference in how far they have to go. Many already use that route to get from McLean to Weld.

Elgin City Engineer Joe Evers said he is encouraged by the planned new interchange layout, but is a bit wary about the need to use Fleetwood and Shepard drives to move between Weld and Route 20.

“The state has been informed of our (city officials’) concerns that this will put some strain on our local streets and will create a longer distance to drive for emergency vehicles and for employees from that industrial park,” Evers said.

To help avoid a traffic overload, he said, the state will put in double left-turn lanes on Fleetwood at McLean and an additional turn lane on McLean at Fleetwood.

“Single-point urban interchanges are rare in this part of the country, but I’ve seen one at U.S. 41 and Route 132 up near Great America, and that seems to work well,” Evers said. “It moves quite a bit of traffic.”

To see an animation showing how a single-point urban interchange works, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwpoPQ1SPJU.

Tridgell said parts of the work that will begin this fall will include:

Widening McLean between Lillian and Fleetwood.

Expanding the intersection of McLean and Fleetwood.

Realigning the intersection of Weld and Shepard.

Temporarily widening the eastbound bridge over McLean so it can handle all four lanes of traffic while the westbound bridge is torn down and replaced a year from now.

Building two new retaining walls along McLean.

One physical sign of what’s coming became visible along McLean Boulevard two weeks ago — orange PVC pipes stuck into the ground along the west edge of McLean, marking where underground utilities now go. IDOT has been buying up land to allow McLean to be widened on both sides of the street.