North Aurora Road construction project in Naperville facing continued delays

The North Aurora Road construction project in Naperville continues to face delays, according to city officials.

The estimated $10.1 million project to widen and improve the roadway between Frontenac Road and Weston Ridge Drive west of Route 59 began in 2021 and was expected to be complete by last fall.

But in a memo to City Manager Doug Krieger, Bill Novack, the city's director of transportation, engineering and development, said various factors have contributed to significant setbacks.

According to Novack, last summer's equipment operator strike shut down construction for seven weeks. Then the liquid asphalt supplier for the paving contractor suffered an explosion at its facility that halted production.

"Startup of work following settlement of the strike was slow due to the need to build back up supplies of materials that had been exhausted at the start of the strike," Novack said in the memo. "Because of the strike, construction pushed into 2023."

The paving contractor, Novack said, is sourcing liquid asphalt from another supplier in the wake of the facility explosion. The new mix, however, failed tests by the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The city hopes a new mix will be approved in the next two weeks.

Seasonal construction resumed on April 14 as contractors began to remove pavement and complete curb and gutter work in addition to paving.

The first phase of the project to widen the roadway is expected to be completed late this summer.

The second phase, which entails replacing the 110-year-old railroad bridge over North Aurora Road, is tentatively scheduled to be completed in 2025.

According to city officials, existing traffic on that stretch of North Aurora Road already exceeds roadway capacity and is expected to grow to nearly 33,000 vehicles per day by 2040.

The city, which received $6 million from the federal government, began in 2006 to secure funding.