Warmer days mean sunshine, late sunsets, blue skies — and construction crews.
Naperville is slated for a myriad of road projects this spring and summer, some of which are already underway.
“We have a lot of work going on this year,” said Andy Hynes, deputy city engineer.
Headlining the slew of improvements is a flurry of work on Washington Street.
Construction continues on the city’s ongoing overhaul of the Washington Street bridge, which stretches over the west branch of the DuPage River. The project, started in May 2023, is a full replacement of the decades-old span and will be completed in two parts, an east section and a west section.
Crews finished pouring the east side of the new bridge deck earlier this month, Hynes said, which was a “major milestone.” Within the next month, work on the west side will start.
Construction will cost more than $9.8 million when finished. Federal funds are covering about $7.5 million of the price tag, according to Hynes.
Just north of bridge work, hefty streetscape upgrades are taking over Washington Street between Chicago and Benton avenues. The $8.4 million project, which is expected to continue through the end of October, started in February and includes street, sidewalk and utility improvements.
Amid Washington Street repairs, the city’s goal is to maintain traffic but there will inevitably be some disruptions and delays, Hynes said. They’re trying to “coordinate all these projects together so that we’re not … disrupting traffic multiple times,” he said.
On Columbia Street between Plank Road and Ogden Avenue, work has already started on $4.58 million in improvements, Hynes said. The city aims to have the job wrapped up by fall.
Another project that’s coming is a $4.45 million reconstruction project of Sylvan Circle in the Oak Hills neighborhood. Hynes said the work will include water main replacements, utility improvements and full pavement replacement.
With the city recently awarding the Sylvan project contract, construction should be starting within the next couple of weeks, he said.
On the city’s north side, the second phase of the North Aurora Road underpass project should be getting underway soon, Hynes said. On the docket since last year, second-phase plans call for the 110-year-old Canadian National/Wisconsin Central Railroad bridge to be replaced with a new structure going over traffic lanes expanded in the first phase of work, he said.
The underpass project is a joint venture between the cities of Naperville and Aurora and Naperville Township Road District.
Hynes said the project partners are “getting very close” to moving ahead with second phase construction. They wanted to start last year but were delayed by “ongoing coordination and agreements needed between numerous stakeholders in the project,” he said. They are “much closer” to having everything locked down but still have several agreements to execute, he said.
The estimated underpass construction cost is $38 million, of which $33 million will be funded with federal and state money. Local project partners will pay the rest, Hynes said.
Across town, the city plans to resurface 21 miles of street in 2024.
Resurfacing is one of several projects that make up the city’s annual street maintenance program. Other maintenance work includes crack filling, patching and microsurfacing. The combined budget for the annual program this year is $13 million, according to Hynes.
Beyond city-planned improvements, the Illinois Department of Transportation is resurfacing pavement on Ogden Avenue between Shandrew Drive and North Aurora Road. The project will include reconstruction of some sidewalk ramps and minor traffic signal modifications, according to a memo from city staff.
Work is well underway on that job, Hynes said, and shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to complete.
“It won’t be all summer long or anything like that,” Hynes said.
A portion of Ogden between Rickert Drive and Aurora Avenue will be excluded from the resurfacing because IDOT is reserving it for a future project planned that section of road.
As for DuPage County road work planned for Naperville this year, county spokeswoman Joan Olson couldn’t provide details yet. “Our DuPage Department of Transportation will likely present their 2024 projects to the Transportation Committee in early May,” she said in an email.