Tunneling begins for pedestrian underpass in Glen Ellyn
A round-the-clock tunneling operation along the Taylor Avenue underpass is beginning Friday night in a Glen Ellyn neighborhood near Glenbard West High School.
Though it will take some patience to get there, the nonstop boring process should end by Sunday afternoon. And that means relief from the continuous din, though the project to build a new pedestrian-only tunnel on the east side of the existing underpass won't be substantially complete until the end of the year.
This weekend, a shielded excavator is installing a roughly 60-foot-long section of the tunnel - essentially a steel pipe 12 feet in diameter. The machine is pushing the pipe through the railroad embankment from the north to the south side of the tracks.
The end pieces of the tunnel - totaling about 90 feet long - will be installed in unison with construction of a retaining wall.
Overall, the project is running smoothly and on schedule with the exception of a one-week delay for fabrication of the pipe, but contractors were still able to work on other areas of the construction zone and start putting the retaining wall pieces into place, said Rich Daubert, the village's professional engineer.
The new tunnel will provide a safer, roomier and illuminated route for Glenbard West students, other pedestrians and cyclists riding the nearby Prairie Path.
Inside the existing, one-lane underpass below the Union Pacific tracks, it's close quarters for the pedestrians and car traffic that share the dimly lit space. Anyone on foot has to walk single-file, while traffic moves one vehicle at a time between the rough walls.
That underpass shut down to both car and pedestrian traffic in mid-August and will remain closed for the duration of the roughly four-month project.
To prepare for the tunneling, ComEd, AT&T, WOW! TV and Comcast had to relocate overhead utility lines on the north side of the tracks, one reason the project involves so many moving pieces, engineers say. At the south side, ComEd had to lower overhead electric lines in mid-September to allow contractors to start installation of sheeting, Daubert said in an informational video produced by the village.
The tunneling will be done over the weekend during a nonpeak period for traffic on Union Pacific Railroad's West Line.
"We've got great cooperation from the utilities," Daubert said Friday. "It's just a matter of timing everything up."
After this weekend's tunneling, crews will still have to build the retaining wall at the pipe's entrance, complete electrical work, reinstall traffic signal equipment, complete roadwork throughout the project limits and construct an 8-foot-wide concrete path running from Willis Street to the north, through the new tunnel and ending at Walnut Street to the south.
The 3-foot-wide path in the existing Taylor Avenue underpass - so narrow that firefighters have to act as spotters to guide fire trucks to the other side - will be removed, and the driving lane widened an additional 2½ feet to allow traffic to maneuver more easily.
Grants will cover about 80 percent of the roughly $3 million in construction costs.