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Metra’s board recently approved a final design contract for the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) program’s Englewood flyover project, according to the program’s partners.

TranSystems Corp. obtained a $5.65 million contract to design the flyover, which will carry Metra’s north-south Rock Island line over the an east-west Norfolk Southern Railway/Amtrak line. To be completed in 2012, the project is designed to eliminate conflicts between 68 Metra trains and 60 freight and Amtrak trains that intersect daily at an existing grade crossing.

The project will be funded with a portion of a $133 million federal grant CREATE partners received in January through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The flyover must be built and in operation before two adjacent CREATE projects — 75th Street corridor improvements and the Grand Crossing — can be completed, according to a prepared statement.

CREATE partners include Amtrak, the Association of American Railroads, Belt Railway Co. of Chicago, BNSF Railway Co., CSX Transportation, CN, Canadian Pacific, Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co., Norfolk Southern Railway, Union Pacific Railroad, and the Illinois and Chicago Departments of Transportation.

Funded through a public-private partnership, CREATE calls for building roadway underpasses or overpasses to separate vehicle/pedestrian and rail traffic; constructing rail overpasses to separate freight- and passenger-rail tracks; and upgrading track, switches, signal systems and other rail infrastructure.