Ike rebuild looms this summer and bumpy ride to Lake Villa

I know you're sick of winter with its endless ice storms, snowstorms, shoveling, car-won't-start, road-salt-on-boots, lost-gloves misery.

But cheer up. Road construction season starts in April.

I made the trek Wednesday to the Illinois Department of Transportation's public meeting on its multiyear construction program.

I was the lone layman in a room full of engineers at IDOT's District 1 headquarters. If they weren't IDOT staff, they were local planners/engineers/economic development types fluent in phrases like "stakeholder input," "context sensitive solutions," and "Phase 2 Engineering."

The room was full of maps with green lines to signify projects slated for this year and red lines showing the scope of the 2010-2015 highway improvement program. It's a sign of the economic times that there weren't that many green lines.

This year's could be a relatively painless construction season with the tollway nearly done with its widening and rebuilding program and IDOT not embarking on any mega projects.

I say relatively painless because Kane and DuPage County drivers who take the Eisenhower to work Monday to Friday should prepare for more than the usual driving angst.

This year, the state transportation department will resurface I-290 from downtown Chicago to around Thorndale Avenue. Work is expected to last from spring to early summer for the east segment between the Loop and I-88 but the construction of the western section will continue through late summer.

Chicago commuters also can expect some messy construction on Congress Parkway as workers rebuild the bridge over the Chicago River. Expect lanes closures with both projects.

Locally, there's a sprinkling of state road construction such as widening Route 47 in Huntley and widening 22nd Street in Oak Brook between Route 83 and Butterfield Road.

So if you've got the itch to learn about local road projects, or you love maps and want some one-on-one with an engineer, here's a list of upcoming open houses.

• 4-6 p.m. Monday, Hilton Garden Garden Inn St. Charles, 4070 E. Main St., St. Charles.

• 4-6 p.m. Tuesday, College of Lake County, 19351 W. Washington St., Building C, Grayslake.

• 4-6 p.m. Wednesday, Hilton Lisle/Naperville, 3003 Corporate West Drive, Lisle.

• 4-6 p.m. Thursday, Holiday Inn Crystal Lake Conference Center, 800 S. Route 31, Crystal Lake.

These public meetings on the multiyear plan are a first for the state transportation department. "It's an opportunity to help us shape the next highway program," said Pete Harmet, the agency's bureau chief of programming.

Readers reach outJohn Delise regularly rides the Metra North Central line from Lake Villa to Chicago. "Perhaps because I sit in the upper level and use a laptop I have noticed a marked loss of smoothness in the ride," Delise wrote. "It has gotten to the point where I sometimes am lifted from my seat and the swaying becomes so bad that I grab for my laptop in fear of it flying away." He's also worried about switching problems at the Prairie View Crossing.Metra's Michael Gillis says, "We haven't had any other major complaints about the smoothness of that line or of that crossing. But our operations folks told me they'd take a ride on it to see if there is an issue. They told me that we just did some work on that crossing that finished (recently), although the crossing was not in particularly bad shape before then. The NCS operates mostly on tracks owned by CN. We'd have to work with them to address any major problems, if there were any."