UP installs permanent Shermer Road bridge

Written by Mischa Wanek-Libman, editor
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The new UP bridge over Shermer Road being rolled into position.
Union Pacific

Union Pacific installed a new bridge during the weekend of Nov. 2-4 at Shermer Road south of Willow Road in Glenview, Ill., to replace a temporary embankment of crushed concrete the railroad has been using since last year.

 

The new span meets requirements laid out in a Memorandum of Understanding between UP and the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and approved by the Glenview and Northbrook Village Boards of Trustees following a derailment that collapsed the original bridge in July 2012. The approximately 149-foot-long bridge with a 57-foot clear span provides for three 12-feet-wide traffic lanes, a 10-foot-wide bike path, a seven-foot-wide bike path and four feet of curbing, with an estimated cost of $10 million.

The construction of the bridge, which is a month ahead of schedule, began in July 2013 and is required to be completed by December 31, 2013, under an Illinois Commerce Commission order.

Glenview, Northbrook and IDOT will be responsible for funding and building the roadway improvements at a future point in time that will be complaint with IDOT’s Complete Streets guidelines. An order from the Illinois Commerce Commission gives the villages until September 30, 2014 to open the road, but the municipalities said they will make every effort to get the road in usable shape as soon as possible.

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