Updated 8/22/2011 - August 2010 Update (pdf) | Prairie Parkway News Coverage | Contact us
Join us for the 10th Annual 'Stop the Beltway' family picnic on Sunday, August 28, at the Marvel Davis farm in Big Rock. The festivities start at 4 pm with music by our friends, the Grasslands Quartet or, sometimes, Quintet ,who have entertained us for most of our gatherings over the years. Marvel Davis will again host the picnic with a light picnic supper. We'll have up-to-date information on the status of the Prairie Parkway -- yes, it's still very much alive -- as well as an opportunity to meet local officials and legislators who help shape our transportation policy. Marvel's farm is at 47W066 Jericho Road, Big Rock, about 5 Miles West of Ill. 47. On the banks of Big Rock Creek and adjacent to the Big Rock Forest Preserve, the farm shows us just while be lost if the Prairie Parkway cuts through the nearby woods and farm fields.
Last year, the Illinois Tollway was looking at the Prairie Parkway as a future tollway project, one of five under consideration. The tollway board met in September 2010 to the review the project and heard from a number of Prairie Parkway opponents. On June 30 the Tollway announced the list of projects for further consideration -- dropping only the Prairie Parkway. Still in the running for future tollways are (1) the Elgin O'Hare Expressway and western bypass to O'Hare; (2) extending Illinois 53 north into Lake and McHenry counties; (3) the proposed Illiana Expressway into Indiana through the southern suburbs; (4) and rebuilding Interstate 90 to Rockford. Also added to the list was the I-294 interchange with I-57.
The Illinois Department of Transportation issued its 2012-2017 Highway Improvement Program this spring, and it includes no funding for the Prairie Parkway. None. No mention. Nothing. This is the second year in a row that all Prairie Parkway funding has been eliminated.
This is IDOT's spending blueprint for highway construction and maintenance over the next six years. Back in 2008, the Highway Improvement Program included $207.5 million for the Prairie Parkway. Dropping all funding is good news, but unfortunately it does not signal the end of the Prairie Parkway. Thus far, about $70 million in federal and state money has been spent on the Prairie Parkway (the state has to provide a 20 percent match for the federal funds). About 250 acres has been acquired for the project -- with land purchased as recently as January.
And there is still $165 million available in federal earmarks for the project -- money that may just prove too tempting for IDOT. That's why we must continue to focus on shifting those earmarked funds from the Prairie Parkway to improving Illinois 47 and local road projects like the Eldamain Road bridge and extension.
See the Highway Improvement Program (District 3) online.
Friends of the Fox River and Citizens Against the Sprawlway filed a lawsuit on March 25, 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago against the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for violating Federal law in how it approved the Prairie Parkway project.
In December 2005, just five months after he secured $207 million in federal funds for the Prairie Parkway, House Speaker Dennis Hastert sold 138 acres of land near the highway route, netting him a $2 million profit on land held for three years or less. See additional details in Prairie Parkway News Coverage and in a Report prepared by the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington DC based Congressional watchdog organization.
Another watchdog group on 2006 called for a Department of Justice investigation of Hastert's land dealings and highway "earmarks." See the details at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington website.
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