Tollway committee backs $7.3M CCTV award and approves $8.5M extra work order for 490 railroad relocation

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority’s engineering committee recommended awarding a systemwide closed‑circuit television contract to Utility Dynamics Corporation for $7,298,079.15 and approved an estimated $8.5 million extra work order for Contract 4732 to support the railroad relocation on the southern leg of the I‑490 corridor.

The authority’s chief engineering officer told the committee that five bids were received and “the low bid was nearly equal to the estimate and the award is recommended to Utility Dynamics Corporation as the low bidder at, $7,298,079.15.” He described the extra work order as necessary because of unforeseen site conditions and changes to railroad operations that increased the time and effort required: “The amount of the extra work order is $8,500,000 and that includes cost for schedule recovery to recover some of the time that we've lost, during construction, resequencing the activities, and then addressing some of the site, different site conditions.”

Staff said the railroad work is especially complex because construction must be coordinated with Canadian Pacific, Union Pacific and Metra and must comply with Federal Aviation Administration rules given the proximity to O'Hare. The $8.5 million figure was presented as an estimated extra work order; staff said only documented actual costs would be paid after review.

The committee consolidated engineering items for consideration and approved items 1–7 as a group, forwarding them to the full board with the committee’s recommendation. The board later took the engineering items up at its full session and approved them as presented.

Next steps: the contract awards will be placed on the full board agenda for final approval (per the committee action) and staff said they will continue to update the board as work progresses and as documented extra costs are incurred.