Cedar Lake Road north of Route 120 reopens after two months

A section of Cedar Lake Road north of Route 120 in Round Lake reopened Friday after being closed for two months, as work to replace the Squaw Creek culvert is nearly complete.

Remaining work this season includes pouring a final piece of the culvert, final clean up, landscaping and creek bank stabilization, according to the Lake County Division of Transportation. That work can be done while the road is open but may require daily lane closures.

The contractor also is preparing for paving later this year of a new, 4,400-foot-long bike path for the Lake County Forest Preserve District on the east side of Cedar Lake Road to just south of Nippersink Road.

Squaw Creek was diverted to a temporary channel to allow for the installation of a concrete box culvert. The creek diversion allowed the work to be done in safe, dry conditions while maintaining the natural flow, according to transportation officials.

That work involved a series of pipes large enough to handle 100-year storms (rainfall only expected to occur once every 100 years) along with erosion control practices to slow down the flow of water.

The culvert replacement was in advance of more substantial work planned for spring. Cedar Lake Road will be rebuilt and widened from two to three lanes to accommodate a center turn lane. Also, a connection to the existing trail system in the Nippersink Forest Preserve will be built.

That portion of the project is planned to last about four months.

In recent years, Cedar Lake Road south of Route 120 was expanded to a three-lane configuration and the Illinois Department of Transportation widened the intersection.

The forest preserve district owns the land west of Cedar Lake Road including the Nippersink Forest Preserve, a former campground that was acquired in stages beginning in 2002. Structures have been demolished and grading for the new Nippersink trails in and around the former RV and sales and storage facility is underway.