CME.05 – West DuPage Branch River Trail

• Czarina Bautista
• Angela James
• Michelle Lemus Alvarez
• Alanna Ou
• Xitlali Sandoval
• Ayesha Umer

For this project, the West Branch Dupage River Trail team will design a bridge connecting a multi-use trail crossing over IL 38 (Roosevelt Road). The main focus for the design is ensuring the safety of the bridge users such as pedestrians, cyclists, and equestrians that were put at risk due to the lack of existing accessible infrastructure. Currently, these bicyclists and equestrians are forced to travel along IL 59 (S. Neltnor Blvd) to go from the Blackwell Forest Preserve to the West DuPage Woods, which poses a safety concern due to the vast difference of speeds and unexpected driving behaviors. Additionally, there are no sidewalks that allow pedestrians to use the roads and that also help separate equations and bicyclists by creating a buffer from cars. By designing and constructing a bi-level bridge over IL 38, land ownership issues can be avoided while also still successfully connecting the northwest and southeast trails along the West Branch DuPage River, completing the 26-mile long West Branch DuPage River Trail. This design includes a steel bowstring truss bridge that spans over 188 feet and is 16 feet wide. The team will incorporate girders and stringers to support the concrete bridge deck. To analyze this design and its efficiency, the team utilized SAP 2000 to illustrate the deformation of the bridge due to the dead and live loads acting on the truss, to obtain the forces in each member, and design the bolted connections.