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Elgin Township not sure when unsafe bridge will reopen

The bridge on Coombs Road in Elgin Township is unsafe and will remain closed for an undetermined time, and officials are urging drivers to keep off.

The bridge goes over the Canadian Pacific Railroad north of Highland Avenue. It was closed last week due to age-related "severe structural damage."

"Safety is a concern. Residents are moving the barricades and still trying to drive around them," Elgin Township Highway Commissioner Rodney A. Seyller said. "Just this (Thursday) morning an employee saw a car trying to go through there."

The township has jurisdiction over the bridge built in 1983. Bridge inspections are coordinated by the Kane County Division of Transportation, which hires engineering consultants and splits the cost with the township.

"This decision (to close it) wasn't undertaken lightly," said Mike Zakosek, KDOT chief of design. "We're doing our best in assisting the township to figure out a solution, short-term and long-term."

Engineers are working to determine if repairs can be performed to open one lane with weight restrictions, Zakosek said. "It's still unclear if that can be done," he said. "If we move forward with short-term repairs, it probably will be more than a couple of weeks and less than several months."

The "superstructure" of the Coombs Road bridge, or the portion that supports the deck, ultimately will need to be replaced, a project that likely will take a couple of years at least, officials said.

Pingree Grove & Countryside Fire Protection District Chief Mitch Crocetti said he's concerned about response times when calls come in from the 700 or so district residents who live north of the bridge, including the Wildwood and Wildwood West subdivisions.

Crocetti said he hopes engineers can come up with a plan to reopen one lane so ambulances can go through.

"It's a one-minute response time from Station 4. Now we go from Station 3 and it's 5½ minutes - it's a huge difference," he said. "Monday morning we had a call (from that area). We don't get a lot of calls there, but we do get some."

Elgin Township maintains three bridges: along Hopps Road, Raymond Street and Coombs. The Hopps Road bridge was replaced about two years ago at a cost of at least $1.3 million, 80 percent in federal funds and the rest in township money, officials said.

The Coombs Road bridge has been inspected yearly since 2011, and last year's inspection showed it needed "substantial superstructural replacement" in about four years. "Inspectors do their best to predict the future, but it's hard," Zakosek said.

The closure is extremely inconvenient for area residents, who are also dealing with construction at Big Timber Road and Route 72, which might be done by the end of the year, and the rebuilding of the Route 72 bridge over Interstate 90, which will take another eight or so weeks, said Gilberts Assistant Village Administrator William Beith.

"Locally, there's not a lot of options to get around," he said.

  The Coombs Road bridge north of Highland Avenue in unincorporated Kane County was closed a few days ago because of "severe structural damage." Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com
  It has yet to be determined whether work on the Coombs Road bridge north of Highland Avenue in unincorporated Kane County can be done while keeping one lane open. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com
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