On Lake Road, the Ravine Is Now Setting the Schedule

At 3 p.m. on Wednesday, September 30, the City of Lake Forest cut the ribbon on the new Lake & Woodbine Bridge. Guests parked on Ring Road in Forest Park, and that afternoon Lake Road reopened to traffic just north of Woodbine Lane for the first time since January. The new bridge has precast balustrades and a concrete arch profile, both drawn from the 1912 bridge it replaced.

Farther along Lake Road, the second Lake Road project is stopped. The Lake & Spruce Bridge, which the city's paperwork calls the McLennon-Reed Bridge, was supposed to be the easier job. It needed a new deck on a 1978 steel bridge, not a full rebuild. It has been on hold since the summer because of water in the ravine slope beneath it.

Two bridges, two very different kinds of hard

On paper, Woodbine was the harder project. It is the one that finished.

Woodbine's scope was more than twice the budget of Spruce's. It had federal money attached and sat inside the East Lake Forest Historic District. That project came in on its nine-month construction window. The smaller deck replacement is the one with no reopening date.

Woodbine did its waiting on paper

The Woodbine bridge was slow in the stages that happen at a desk. Because it carried federal funding, the city had to follow IDOT's three-phase process. Planning, which covered bridge type studies, environmental reviews, and work with the Historic Preservation Commission, ran from 2012 to 2024. Design ran from 2023 to 2025, with reviews by IDOT and the State Historic Preservation Officer. The Historic Preservation Commission issued a Certificate of Appropriateness, finding that the design fit the historic district.

Then it was delayed by money. Construction was first expected in 2025, but budget constraints pushed it back. The city applied for a second grant to cover the added cost and received it in April 2025. Lake Road closed at the bridge the week of January 12, 2026. Local access stayed open on either side.

Once work began, the decade of preparation paid off. The original 1912 bridge had shallow closed-spandrel arches, piers, decorative relief panels, and balustrade railings, and the replacement echoes its closed-spandrel concrete-arch appearance. According to Civiltech's account of the project, the new structure was cast in place over extensive temporary formwork. It carries ornamental precast concrete balustrades modeled on the originals. In the same article, Civiltech resident engineer Hugh Gilgunn said the traditional methods were challenging. He also said it was gratifying to work on a design that honors the old bridge.

In the last full week before opening, crews spread topsoil, replaced brick paver driveways, finished the residential walls attached to the bridge, and seeded the ravine under erosion-control blanket. In short, the Woodbine schedule depended on approvals and funding, and once those were settled, construction was predictable.

Spruce ran into water no permit could plan for

The Spruce project had none of that history. The bridge dates to 1978. Its deck had been patched over the years with epoxy, concrete, and asphalt, and a concrete drainage channel ran beneath the center span. The plan called for a new concrete deck with a sidewalk along the east edge, new railings, and about 33 feet of slope stabilization directly beneath the bridge. The city's page expected an April start and about six months of work.

The October 5, 2026 City Council agenda lays out what happened after that, in order:

1. March 2026. Dunnet Bay begins work, and the project team sees an abnormal amount of water draining from the north ravine embankment.
2. Early June. Two wick drains go in to drain the embankment and limit further slope damage.
3. The weeks after. The drains keep putting out about 64 ounces of water per minute, with no sign of slowing. City staff stop the rehabilitation over concerns about saturated soil and possible slope failure.
4. July 20. The Council ratifies an emergency contract with ECS Midwest for subsurface exploration.
5. August. ECS delivers its report.
6. September 21. Staff review the report at a Council workshop.
7. October 5. The agenda asks the Council to approve a contract amendment for more slope analysis.

Sixty-four ounces is half a gallon. At that rate, the drains move about 720 gallons a day out of one embankment, and the agenda says the flow showed no sign of slowing. The city's page notes that some water was expected after winter snowmelt and spring rain. The flow kept going well past that season.

Why the next step is more testing, not more concrete

The ECS report gave the city some reassurance and some uncertainty. Four 100-foot soil borings found groundwater about 24 feet below grade, in a layer of sand. The borings could not show whether that water is a pocket at the sampling spots or runs consistently down the slope to the bottom of the ravine. ECS concluded that both ravine slopes are stable for now but need stabilization to meet the required long-term safety margin.

The agenda explains why the city chose not to start building fixes based on that report:

"Proceeding based on the current conservative groundwater assumptions would require more extensive stabilization measures than may be necessary, potentially resulting in increased construction costs."

Staff recommended more subsurface investigation to pin down the groundwater conditions first. The firm proposed for that work is Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, already the city's bridge program manager and structural engineer on this project. Its proposal is for up to $70,300. That would raise WJE's budget line from $80,000 to $144,731. The unbudgeted $64,731 would come from savings elsewhere in the FY2027 Capital Improvement Fund. The amendment is for engineering only. It is separate from the $2,175,000 construction contract.

One sentence in the agenda is easy to over-read. It says the additional work "will not alter the original target completion dates for this service." "This service" refers to WJE's engineering contract, not the bridge. The agenda gives no new reopening date for Lake Road at Spruce. The materials reviewed for this post include the request but not the Council's vote on it.

Lake Road this fall, from Woodbine to Spruce

For anyone using Lake Road through the rest of October, the two ends now work differently.

• At Woodbine, the bridge is open, but a few jobs remain. Crews still need to finish the sill on top of the residential walls, rework parts of the ornamental railing, plant trees in the ravine, and close out the punch list. The city has said these may require temporary daily lane closures.
• At Spruce, the city's most recent dated update, from September 25, said both construction zones remained closed to vehicles and pedestrians. No later official update has said the Spruce crossing has reopened. The detour map from the December 2025 open house sends through traffic around the closures by way of Sheridan Road.
• On either side of both bridges, local access and driveway access stay open, per the city's construction guidance. When work is active, it can run from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends if needed.
• Around the work zones, the city has repeatedly asked people not to cut through neighboring private property or driveways.

The Lake Road Bridges project page is where Spruce updates will appear first. The city also sends email and text alerts to people who register at cityoflakeforest.com/enotify. The next real milestone for the McLennon-Reed Bridge is a refined groundwater picture from WJE's supplemental investigation. The stabilization design, and any reopening date, will follow from that.

The Woodbine bridge was rebuilt to keep the look of the East Lake Forest Historic District, and we pay the same attention to the homes along this stretch of Lake Road. If you live near either ravine and want to talk about how your home's setting and historic character come across to the next buyer, Kim & Carleigh would be glad to walk the property with you. Schedule a design-forward consultation.