The DuPage County Division of Transportation sought to widen the existing Eola Road, from 87th Street to Montgomery Road, from a two-lane roadway to four lanes. Benesch performed extensive drainage analyses as part of this project, including the design of an enclosed drainage system and the design of 8,000 LF of storm sewer.
The roadway design was complicated by steep cut sections located within an existing 80-foot right-of-way. Located adjacent to the right-of-way are various utility lines and many residential homes. As a result, retaining walls were required at several locations. Early in the design process, a value planning workshop was held with stakeholders to identify key issues and concerns related to the roadway typical section. The parties involved included the DuPage County Division of Transportation, the City of Aurora, Indian Prairie School District 204 and the Fox Valley Park District.
Considered in the drainage design were numerous conflicts with other utilities and completing the design within a dedicated utility corridor. The roadway profile design incurred numerous iterations to enable the drainage to be designed within the project constraints. Due to the development of the surrounding areas, the options for detention were limited.
The surveying aspects of this job required expertise in the areas of: control survey, right-of-way survey, boundary survey and engineering survey. The alignment of the existing road had to be established in the field and made to fit both the existing improvement and the original design. All topographic features along with the contour model had to be developed from field acquired data.