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By TOM SCHLUETER
Kane County Chronicle
GENEVA - A proposed highway in western Kane County has led to a feud between two popular politicians.
On one side is U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, third in line for the U.S. presidency, who is a strong supporter of the Prairie Parkway.
On the other is Kane County Board Chairman Mike McCoy, who sees the highway as destroying his policies of preserving agricultural land and open space.
Both enjoy strong support among their constituencies. Both believe in their causes. Both are prepared to fight to the end.
"It's going to be a long war," McCoy said.
One of the fundamental issues nagging both is the eternal question: What comes first, the traffic or the road?
The Illinois Department of Transportation, with Hastert's support, has taken the unusual step of trying to protect a corridor for the Prairie Parkway without money to buy rights-of-way, nor statistics to back up the need for the road.
Hastert spokesman Brandon Grometer said the Chicago area has few north-south routes that aren't choked with traffic.
Compounding the problem are lost opportunities in DuPage County to construct a major north-south highway to relieve congestion on existing roads.
Hastert supports identifying a corridor before the explosive growth slated for Kane puts the county in the same position as its neighbor to the east, Grometer said.
"The Speaker believes the time to do that is now," he said.
McCoy said siting a centerline for a new highway will spur growth and create even worse traffic. He said history is on his side.
Look at the westward movement of the pioneers along rivers, wagon trails and railroads, he said.
"They ventured out into virgin territory and development followed," McCoy said.
"Transportation drives land use."
Another way to view the axiom is to look at historical aerial photographs of interstate highways. McCoy said the photos would show development growing year by year.
Randall Road is another example, McCoy said.
Randall was designated a strategic regional arterial highway, designed to move people from one end of the county to the other.
Instead, commercial interests bought up land fronting the road and now Randall is cursed as the most congested road in Kane County.
"Business will figure out a way to use to the land," McCoy said.
The Prairie Parkway is not the first proposal for a major north-south route. Plans for the so-called Fox Valley Freeway surfaced from time to time, but no one could find a place for it.
Corridors for the Fox Valley Freeway included Route 59, a path along the east side of Fermilab, another along the west side of Fermilab, and Route 47.
Each of the routes would have taken homes and property. None had public support and the proposals died. In the meantime, traffic on existing roads got worse. Not to protect a corridor now would doom any hope for a north-south route, Grometer said.
Grometer said Hastert supports the concept of the highway, but is favoring one corridor over another.
"It is IDOT's job to find a route," Grometer said.
The corridor identified by IDOT - and the one upon which the public can offer comments until Feb. 10 - runs 33 miles from I-88 just east of Kaneville south past Big Rock and on into Kendall County, meeting up with I-80 near Minooka.
A route for the beltway closer to the Fox Valley makes more sense, McCoy said. Kaneville and Big Rock townships are not under pressure from development, due in large part to the county's 2020 Land Resource Management Plan, which calls for the protection of agricultural land.