Detour ahead: Road closures coming for Elgin drivers

Multiple construction projects starting this week could cause some serious traffic headaches for drivers in Elgin.

Metra, Union Pacific Railroad and Nicor Gas all have construction projects starting soon that will close high-traffic routes in Elgin, including McLean Boulevard near Big Timber Road this week and the Kimball Street bridge next week.

Both Union Pacific and Nicor have projects that will affect McLean Boulevard traffic. The Union Pacific project, which starts at 7 a.m. Tuesday, will close both northbound and southbound traffic, just south of Big Timber Road, until 5 p.m. Friday. Crews will do repair work to the tracks that cross McLean.

An overlapping project on McLean by Nicor, which starts Wednesday, will close southbound traffic at the intersection for up to one month.

Nicor will perform directional boring from just north of the Speedway gas station under Big Timber to just south of the Metra tracks. Southbound lanes will remain closed for the extent of the project.

The roughly 20,000 cars that use Kimball Street daily will need to find another route across the river starting Sept. 23.

A Metra project to repair the track crossing on Kimball will close one of the main routes to downtown for nine days. The road will be closed between Route 31 and Grove Avenue.

Posted detours will have drivers cross the river westbound on Highland Avenue and eastbound using Chicago Street.