The city of Lake Forest is making a second effort at planning a pedestrian underpass at its west train station.
On May 15, the Lake Forest City Council approved paying $281,421 to Hanson Professional Services for preliminary engineering on a new underpass design. The money will be reimbursed from a grant for high speed rail from the state, said Robert Ells, superintendent of engineering for Lake Forest.
The city has been discussing the construction of an underpass for the station at 911 Telegraph Road since at least 2009, Ells said.
In March 2012, the Council approved paying $208,405 to HDR Inc. for preliminary design service, according to documents on the city website. The type of design was restricted because Metra – which owns the tracks – didn’t want any interruption to train service, according to city documents.
The city chose what became known as a “bowl design,” that would allow the underpass to be created while trains continued to run on the tracks, according to city documents. The bowl design was initially estimated to cost $5 million. In final design, however, after soil and geotechnical studies, it was determined that the bowl design would cost about $13 million, Ells said.
“The price just went way up,” Ells said.
City staff met with Metra earlier this year to discuss a construction method that would allow for closure of one-track direction over two to four weekends, Ells said. Metra has agreed in principal to track outages, but is waiting until preliminary engineering for the new design is complete before formally agreeing, according to Metra spokesman Michael Gillis.
“We haven’t figured out the details yet because their design isn’t complete,” he said.
The new construction design would reduce the cost of the project by $2 to $2.5 million, Ells said.
IDOT must approve conducting preliminary design, Ells said, which he estimates will take two to four months. Then, Hanson Professional Services will take about six months to develop the preliminary design, Ells said, and it will go back to IDOT for review.
Metra will also review the completed preliminary design. If Metra approves, then it can sign a memo of agreement with the city on allowing track outages during construction, Kiely said.
If all goes well, that still leaves the city with the need to find more than $10 million for construction.
“This project will not go forward without federal grant funding,” Kiely said.
The city wants a pedestrian underpass to improve safety, officials say, and to encourage Amtrak to stop there. In January 2010, the city council approved a recommendation supporting an Amtrak stop at its west train station, according to city documents.
In considering whether to stop at the Lake Forest train station, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said Amtrak would consider whether there was a business reason for a stop, such as passenger traffic. Amtrak would also weigh whether a stop would affect current or projected future operations of Amtrak, Metra or freight trains, he said. And for that train line which runs between Chicago and Milwaukee, Amtrak would make a decision about a stop in partnership with the states of Wisconsin and Illinois, he said.
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If those aspects were satisfied, a pedestrian underpass would make the station more accessible, Magliari said.
“We’d want both tracks to be accessible,” Magliari said. “Operationally, if there was only a platform on one side, you’re delaying trains. We’d want to be able to stop on both tracks. There would be less interference with our operation and Metra and freight operations to have safe access on both sides of the track for all people.”
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