A massive project to send Northwest Highway/Route 14 under the Canadian National railroad tracks in Barrington got underway in 2025, and that involved installing a temporary Northwest Highway so the original could be dug up.
What a stunning temporary Northwest Highway it is, complete with a temporary sidewalk on one side that can work for bicyclists trying to get across town.
When I took a walk from downtown to have a look at the construction on Nov. 6, I was expecting cheap asphalt for the temporary Northwest Highway, as well as for a temporary stretch of Lake Zurich Road.
But cheap asphalt it is not. Instead nice new concrete makes up the four lanes of the road, as well as most of the sidewalk and the Lake Zurich Road stretch.
It almost seems a shame to tear it all up when the underpass work is done. Can they make it a bikeway in the end? There’s even enough room to make it both a bikeway and a walkway — a total natural greenway.
I half-joke. The stretch is hardly a quarter-mile. But making the whole of Northwest Highway through Cook County a bike route was a goal of the Northwest Municipal Conference once.
The plans
Anyway, Barrington leaders have sought a solution to trains’ blocking traffic since Canadian National bought the rail line through town in 2008. The answer is the underpass project that will send Northwest Highway under the train tracks and lower nearby Lake Zurich Road to meet it. (See more of the plans.)
The village lists “substantial construction” happening from 2024 to 2026, while a Daily Herald report said the work is expected to be finished in July 2027.
The best part is a real sidepath on the east and north side of the new Northwest Highway, and even on both sides of at least the southwest end of Lake Zurich Road. The path will connect key community gathering places.
The Barrington Area library is at about the southeast corner of the project. As Northwest Highway heads north and curves west, it intersects with Lake Zurich Road, which connects to Citizens Park as well as Lake County’s Cuba Marsh and its gravel trails.
Then the road and path will head west to Hough Street (Route 59), where there are more shops and businesses, homes and Langendorf Park.
This underpass is sorely needed not just so drivers (and emergency vehicles) can stop worrying about hitting a train delay, but also so bicyclists and pedestrians can move freely under the tracks between the southeast section of town and that northwest end.
What’s there now
It turns out residents can get through the S-curve and across the tracks now, via the temporary sidewalk.
Around the entrance to the Barrington Area Library at Berry Road, a wide sidewalk has been built. It connects to a typical sidewalk to the southeast. That sidewalk outside the construction zone isn’t very wide, but residents can use it to go from downtown to the library.
North of the library entrance, the sidewalk proceeds through the curve. Quickly it meets the temporary Lake Zurich Road; a sidewalk continues on one side of that road, too.
Once the Northwest Highway sidewalk crosses the tracks, barriers separate it from the often busy traffic. The sidewalk does get thinner in some spots.
On Nov. 6, the sidewalk didn’t quite extend all the way to Route 59; a gravel path finishes the trip.
Once at the intersection, it’s sidewalks or the two busy roads that bicyclists must navigate, though side streets are near in all directions.
Before and after
Meanwhile, I took a final walk on the old Northwest Highway (don’t try this at home) before the dig-out under the tracks begins.
You can see where tracks have been moved, and maybe a hint of what’s coming.
Google Maps also interestingly shows both the original Northwest Highway and the temporary one.
More serious road cyclists who just want to cross Barrington can avoid all this. The safest bets still are Ela Road to go north-south east of Barrington, or Old Sutton Road and others out west in Barrington Hills. Roads like Otis Road, Hillside Avenue and Cuba Road are good east-west routes through or around Barrington.
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