Orchard Road Concrete Work to Begin Tuesday

Update: This work is now set to begin tomorrow, Nov. 1, at 7 a.m. The headline and story have been changed.

If you drive Orchard Road through Montgomery, you’re going to want to find another route for the next few weeks.

The first phase of the Orchard Road widening project is coming to a head, with concrete pavement and curb and gutter work beginning on the southbound lanes on Nov. 1, according to the Kane County Division of Transportation.

The road will not be blocked off, and the traffic pattern will stay the same, but about 500 semi truck loads of concrete will be moved in and dumped out, so flaggers will need to stop traffic much more frequently, according to KDOT. The process is expected to take two to three weeks to complete.

The good news, however, is that once the concrete and curbs are in, and the lane markings painted, construction will shut down for the winter. Work on the northbound lanes will pick up in March, with the full project expected to be completed by Nov. 1, 2012.

The widening project, in the works for nearly a decade, will remove a bottleneck between Jericho Road and Route 30 that has snarled traffic for years. The project will see that section of road widened from two lanes to four, with a bike path added on the west side of Orchard and new traffic signals at Aucutt Road and Rochester Drive.

The project was initially expected to cost north of $18 million, but the still-faltering economy led to 12 hungry contractors bidding for the job. The contract, which IDOT awarded in June, went to Plote Construction Inc. of Hoffman Estates, who agreed to do the work for $9.2 million.

The widening will be paid for with $3.7 million in federal funds, $233,400 in state funds, and $5.3 million from Kane County.

Follow the progress of the Orchard Road project and receive traffic alerts at www.orchardroadrecon.com.