UPDATED: Traffic to Switch to New Lanes on Orchard Today and Tomorrow

UPDATE: Work is now scheduled to begin around 11 a.m. today, with all traffic switched over by tomorrow afternoon.

For months, crews have been constructing new concrete lanes on Orchard Road in Montgomery. Today, they’ll be put to use.

Officials at the Kane County Division of Transportation have announced that traffic will be moved onto the new lanes today, signaling that the first half of the Orchard Road widening project is winding down.

The two new lanes will be for southbound traffic once the entire project is complete, but officials say they will use one for northbound and one for southbound traffic starting today. According to village officials, the switchover is expected to begin around 7 a.m., with southbound traffic on the new pavement by 10 a.m., and northbound by 2 p.m.

There will be no disruption to side streets or business traffic, KDOT officials say, and the new traffic configuration will be in place through June of next year.

According to a schedule posted on KDOT’s Orchard Road website, the first half of December will be spent constructing a box culvert, removing pavement and doing sewer and utility work. The project will then shut down for the winter, picking up in March of next year, as work begins on the new northbound lanes.

The full project is 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.