CATEGORY: H - Transportation

CLIENT/OWNER: Kane County Department of Transportation

SUBMITTING FIRM: Crawford, Murphy & Tilly; Hampton, Lenzini and Renwick; Thomas Engineering; BLA, Inc.; Burns & McDonnell; V3; CivilTech; Alfred Benesch; Clark Dietz; Huff & Huff

KEY PARTICIPANTS: Kane County Department of Transportation, Crawford, Murphy & Tilly, Hampton, Lenzini and Renwick, Thomas Engineering, Bollinger, Lach & Assoc., Burns & McDonnell, V3 Companies, CivilTech, Alfred Benesch, Clark Dietz, Huff & Huff, Wang Engineering

DESCRIPTION: With a total construction cost of $117 million, the Longmeadow Parkway Corridor is one of the largest infrastructure project ever under taken by Kane County. This four-lane, 5.6-mile suburban highway features a four-span, 788-foot-long bridge that provides a crucial connection across the Fox River, serving a rapidly growing part of the county. The Fox River and its surrounding environs provide a scenic vista along the project corridor and great care was taken to assimilate the new infrastructure into the beauty of the natural environment with aesthetic features. Protecting endangered species, mitigating the impact to trees at a 2 to 1 replacement rate, and safely removing toxic soils are among the environmental highlights. This project also demonstrated the feasibility of developing a county-administered tollway authority to fund infrastructure improvements in a way that allows costs to be shared by users outside the owner’s taxing jurisdiction. A value engineering study resulted in the implementation of 25 cost-saving measures at a savings of $39 million.