Roadwork slated in Buffalo Grove area

A heavily traveled but bump-plagued section of Arlington Heights Road will be repaired this summer as part of a $3 million Lake County project.

A nearby stretch of Buffalo Grove Road will get similar repairs and an additional lane as part of the same deal, according to county transportation plans.

The Arlington Heights Road effort will focus on a roughly 1½-mile stretch between Lake-Cook Road and Route 83 in the Buffalo Grove area. It's a popular avenue for motorists driving between Cook and Lake counties, and age has taken its toll on the road.

"It's almost a 30-year-old concrete pavement," said Marty Buehler, director of Lake County's transportation division. "We've done a little work here and there, but it's at the end of its service life."

Now marked by potholes, cracks and long ribbons of missing pavement between lanes, the road will be patched and smoothed over for more comfortable rides, Buehler said.

Just to the east, a half-mile leg of Buffalo Grove Road between Deerfield Parkway and Route 83 will be repaired as well. An additional southbound lane will be built, too, giving motorists two lanes in each direction.

The southbound side of the road has only one lane now, Buehler said, because Buffalo Grove Road was built in stages, often by developers, through the years and was never fully realized.

"We ended up with this gap," Buehler said. "We want to finish the job off."

Cash for the effort will come from Lake County sales-tax funds. The county board approved funding for the project at its meeting this week.

A contractor could be hired for the work in June, with construction to begin in July, Buehler said. The project should wrap up this fall, he said.

The plan is progressing a year or so after a different stretch of Arlington Heights Road got a makeover. In that effort, which followed a brutal 2007-08 winter that badly damaged the road surface, a short segment south of Dundee Road in Arlington Heights was repaved.