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player ready...The main entrance, parking lot and a portion of the walking/biking trail in Naperville’s McDowell Grove Forest Preserve will be closed until at least late fall so the preserve’s 70-year-old, single-car bridge can be replaced.
Work is to begin in June on the $1.96 million project in which a new two-lane span will be built, said Kevin Horsfall, the forest preserve district’s planning manager. It will include a separate, elevated trail with a barrier wall for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, he said.
Workers will also “reconfigure the entrance to eliminate a dangerous curve and reroute the West Branch DuPage River Trail” so that it avoids the parking lot, Horsfall said in a news release.
“A clear span of the river and higher elevation will minimize debris buildup during floods,” he said.
Audra Bonnet, the district’s public relations coordinator and acting director, said the preserve will be accessible on foot but cars will prohibited and the picnic shelter will be off-limits during construction.
Visitors can get in and out of the preserve during construction using the “turf and limestone trails from the east, south and north, and (can) fish along Mud Lake and the West Branch DuPage River away from the work site,” the release said.
However, those on foot or bicycle who want to cross the preserve via the West Branch DuPage River Trail “will need to take a 6.8-mile, C-shaped detour through Naperville,” the release said.
From the preserve’s north end, that detour goes west along Ferry Road, southwest on the Illinois Prairie Path-Aurora Branch and then along Fairway Drive, Campbell Drive and Bruce Lane to Brookdale Road. It crosses Raymond Drive before reconnecting with the trail near Fawell Dam.
Forest preserve commissioners concluded closing the main entrance, bridge, parking lot and picnic shelter during construction was “the best choice in terms of public safety, cost and efficiency,” district President Joe Cantore said.
Commissioners in March 2007 considered a $1.67 million proposal to replace the bridge but opted instead for a maintenance and repair plan.