CME.04 – Intersection Improvement Design in the Village of New Lenox

• Saif Alhourani
• Christian Crespo
• Michal Korzen
• Karol Koziel
• George Menyen
• Rodrigo Zavala

Cedar Road is a major transportation artery located in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. The project site lies at Cedar Road and Haven Avenue in the Village of New Lenox, where Cedar Road has a 150 foot offset at Haven Avenue, creating two closely spaced intersections. This offset at the intersection creates congestion, mobility, operational, and safety issues for vehicular and non-motorized users. Future traffic projections from 2017 anticipate an average growth of 52.8%, 73.8%, and 97.6% by 2050, 2060, and 2070, respectively. These traffic increases will degrade the intersection operations, and the mobility and safety issues will continue to be problematic. A new roundabout intersection is being developed at this location to remove the offset, accommodate 2050 traffic, and improve the safety of all road users. Additional benefits include improved accessibility, allowing walking to be more viable to all intersection quadrants. The Village is currently planning to develop a walkable town center northeast of the intersection, and the improved junction would complement the development. The group conducted a sensitivity analysis which showed that operational deficiencies will begin to occur for the proposed one-lane roundabout between 2060 and 2070. Based on the sensitivity analysis, improvements would be needed to accommodate the 2070 traffic. Our group performed hand calculations to analyze the proposed roundabout, and utilized SIDRA, an intersection analysis software, to verify the hand calculations. The team designed a turbo roundabout as a possible improvement for the intersection. Microstation, a computer-aided design software, was used to design the turbo-roundabout. This design will potentially improve the currently proposed roundabout when it exceeds capacity beyond the current design year of 2050.