Shermer road work underway

Updated: October 11, 2012 1:29PM

GLENVIEW | Installation of a temporary traffic signal began this week at Shermer Road and West Lake Avenue on the Glenview\Northbrook border.

West of The Glen, the red lights will improve traffic flow on Shermer Road while Union Pacific Railroad rebuilds the bridge viaduct, village officials have said.

On July 4, a northbound Union Pacific coal train derailed and collapsed the bridge, killing a Glenview couple below in their vehicle.

The signal installation should take about a week, said Lynne Stiefel, Glenview’s communications director, adding it will remain for about two months until more construction is completed.

The $10 million project to rebuild the bridge will last 18 to 24 months.

Plans also are underway to construct a temporary road to Patriot Boulevard via Old Willow Road to facilitate traffic from businesses south of the closed bridge.

Union Pacific also has agreed to pay up to $275,000 for the temporary road, as well as $57,000 for the traffic signal on Shermer Road and $10 million for the bridge.

A memorandum of understanding between Union Pacific, Glenview and Northbrook has been signed and allowed work to begin.

On July 16, a Union Pacific executive at a community meeting at Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook said excessively high weather temperatures may have caused the fatal crash.

Temperatures that day reached more than 100 degrees and may have kinked or buckled the tracks.

UP executive David Connell said a signal inspector “noticed something wrong in the tracks.”

“The signal inspector phoned the track inspector, who was not on duty, but he drove to the site. The accident happened nearly simultaneously when he arrived,” Connell said after the meeting.

Working with the Federal Railroad Administration, Union Pacific will continue inspecting the site and file a public report in six months.

Previous accidents occurred in 1974, 1993 and 2009, in the same location, but only the most recent was fatal.

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