Simultaneous projects expected to cause traffic woes along long stretch of Milwaukee Avenue
The promised mess came to pass Friday as lanes of traffic on busy Milwaukee Avenue in Libertyville were closed for advance work on a grinding and resurfacing project.
Northbound traffic was funneled into one lane near Rockland Road and resulted in the expected bottleneck. Drivers should get used to periodic closures from Church Street in downtown Libertyville, south to Route 60 in Vernon Hills, for the next several months.
But that's not the only cause for driver angst. A separate project being done simultaneously will pick up where this one leaves off at Route 60 south through Vernon Hills, Lincolnshire, Buffalo Grove and Riverwoods to Lake-Cook Road.
And, Libertyville-area drivers received another bit of news Friday, with the announcement by the Illinois Department of Transportation of pending lane reductions on Route 137 (Peterson Road) beginning Monday, weather permitting.
Those closures will occur between Butterfield Road and Route 21 (Milwaukee Avenue) and involve patching, repaving and curb and gutter removal and replacement. That work is supposed to be completed by June 30.
Crews also were out along Milwaukee Avenue in Lincolnshire Friday, doing advance work.
"The lane closures are temporary and intermittent," said Rob Horne, engineering supervisor for the village.
Both projects along Milwaukee Avenue are being done by IDOT and involve curb patching and sidewalk and pedestrian crossing work. The more disruptive resurfacing is expected to start in mid-April but an exact date is not known, according to Horne.
Once that starts, the road will remain open, but heavy delays are expected as traffic will be reduced to one lane with flaggers as required. According to IDOT, the work will involve several simultaneous resurfacing operations.
Horne expected the $5.4 million project to be complete by late August. He said a section of Milwaukee Avenue at Route 22 won't be resurfaced, as it was rebuilt a few years ago with concrete.
"They won't be resurfacing the work they did," he said. "They'll stop where the concrete ends and pick it up south of Route 22."
On the northern portion in Libertyville, village officials have approved overnight work from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. for milling and grinding operations in order to move the project along and create fewer problems for drivers.
That section of work includes the addition of landscaped medians near Westfield Hawthorn shopping center, according to David Brown, Vernon Hills' village public works director/engineer. He said the village is pleased the road is being resurfaced and added that the medians will be a "very nice enhancement" coupled with the ongoing renovation at the mall.