Cedar Lake Road improvements to start in 2015

• Reprints

Updated: April 16, 2012 1:43AM

Cedar Lake Road, host to some 5,500 vehicles per day near downtown Round Lake, is being eyed for a set of improvements in coming years that will include a traffic signal at Route 120.

In fact, that signal will likely be in place before the end of 2012 as the Lake County Division of Transportation completes a $5.9 million extension of Cedar Lake south of 120 to Town Line Road.

“We don’t want to open up the south side and have stop signs there,” said Chuck Gleason, the division’s senior civil engineer, at a well-attended public meeting Wednesday at Magee Middle School to discuss general plans for improvements north of 120.

Tentatively scheduled to start construction in 2015 and now in its planning phase, the improvements between 120 and Nippersink Road will likely feature a center turn lane with two new through lanes, according to Gleason.

“We don’t know exactly what we’re going to do yet,” said Gleason, “but we are looking at a three-lane roadway, and also possibly a bike path, more than likely on the east side.”

There are also concepts being discussed by the county and Round Lake to realign Cedar Lake north of Nippersink to link directly with Route 134 at a point west of the current intersection in the middle of the business district.

The current alignment features a Z-turn and a four-way stop near the village’s Metra station, with Cedar Lake often blocked by idling trains.

“We’d like to get that away from where it is today (and) maybe move the train station to the old lumberyard,” said Gleason, adding that these concepts are “in the very early stages” and will have to address such issues as multiple landowners along a new centerline.

Another improvement on Cedar Lake that is much farther along centers on its intersection at Monaville Road, where a roundabout is being planned. Paula Trigg, the division’s director of planning and programming, said that project is currently in the acquisition of right-of-way, with construction tentatively taking place during the summer of 2013.

As for Cedar Lake and 120, the Illinois Department of Transportation has already completed intersection improvements that include left-turn lanes for east-west traffic, and the county’s work on the southern extension is under contract to re-start this spring.