No Detours as Part of Willow Rd. Construction, Delays Expected
The widening of Willow Road in Northfield will start this spring, but will not include detours off the main artery to the Edens Expressway.
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There will undoubtedly be congestion on the 1.2 miles of Willow Road slated to be widened to four lanes starting this spring, but there won't be detours off the main artery between Waukegan Road and I94, according to TribLocal.
Northfield Village Manager Stacy Sigman is quoted in the article as saying that no detours are planned during the construction, which will start around April 1 and is scheduled to last until October 2014. Traffic will be shifted to temporary southern lanes while the northern lanes are worked on, and then the traffic will switch so the crews can work on the southern lanes, Sigman said.
The $35 million project includes four 10-foot-wide lanes for most of its length, with a landscaped median, left-turn lanes, modernized traffic signals and sidewalks along both sides. A pedestrian-only signal would allow people to stop traffic to cross Willow Road between Willow and Clarkson parks, and the speed limit would be reduced from 35 mph to 30 mph.
The plan calls for special decorative light poles, brick sidewalks in the downtown area and decorative bridge work, among other things.
chris
9:16 am on Saturday, January 12, 2013
35 million dollars and 19 months to make a 1.2 mile stretch of road? And they will lower the speed limit and install more traffic lights? It's the mis-timed and misplaced traffic lights that cause the jams now. I can't wait until these same idiots take over healthcare.
Kavan Sidhu
1:18 pm on Sunday, January 13, 2013
amen chris!!
Lynda Bennett
3:26 pm on Sunday, January 13, 2013
It took the Mars Curiosity rover 8.5 months to travel from the Earth to Mars. Why will it take 19 months to lay down 1.2 miles of concrete and some decorations?
Billy Bob Shapiro
4:26 pm on Sunday, January 13, 2013
That area of Willow Rd has always been a speed trap for Northfield. The village has tried to keep traffic away by writing tickets for a few miles over and keeping the lights mis-timed. This has gone on for years and the state has said nothing. Now they will get away with lowering the speed limit, just to prove a point. Take Dundee Rd. It's quicker and the shop owners in Northbrook are nicer. If people stop shopping at the centers, maybe the village will get the point.