IDOT Interstate Connector News

Chicago Tribune
January 21, 2003

IDOT wants to show public an open mind on beltway

By William Presecky
Tribune staff reporter

State highway planners say they will try to convince skeptics this week that they are not predisposed to building a far western beltway linking Interstate Highways 88 and 80 before they identify the transportation needs of the area.

The state's five-year, $18 million study--aimed at evaluating those needs in parts of Kane, Kendall, Will, Grundy, DeKalb and LaSalle Counties--is set to begin with two public information meetings this week, in Sugar Grove and Minooka.

The first part of the planning effort includes land-use and travel-demand forecasting and a report identifying the area's transportation needs, according to Rick Powell, a project engineer with the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The Sugar Grove meeting is to be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday in Kaneland South Elementary School, 85 S. Main St. The meeting in Minooka is to be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday in the Fountains of Minooka, 502 Twin Rail Drive.

The initial part of the study, which is being underwritten largely with federal funds, is expected to be completed in about a year. Depending on the findings, further studies might be done to identify alternatives that address the area's needs. The entire study could take five years to complete.

Powell said the primary purpose of the meetings is to assure critics of the proposed Prairie Parkway "that we are starting a study, and we're starting with a clean slate."

The state has identified a 36-mile-long, 400-foot-wide swath through Kane and Kendall Counties as a corridor for building the roadway, if it is determined one is needed.

"In regards to the Prairie Parkway, a corridor has been protected, but that is strictly a planning tool for a future facility in case we need it," said Powell. "The corridor that is in place is just one of many options that we may choose to use to meet that need."

Property owners in the swath sued, claiming the corridor protection amounted to a taking of their land. But a Kendall County Circuit Court judge dismissed the suit Jan. 8.

An attorney for the landowners challenging the state's corridor-protection process said he plans to file a revised version of the complaint within the next two weeks.

According to Powell, the roughly 1,500-square-mile area to be studied lies generally between Interstates 88 and 80 and includes southern Kane, western Will, northern Grundy, all of Kendall, and eastern DeKalb and LaSalle Counties.

IDOT held a briefing last week in Plano for more than 80 state, county, township and municipal officials and professional staff from governments in the affected counties.

Kane County Board Chairman Mike McCoy (R-Aurora), who was at the meeting, said he is taking state planners at their word that "they are starting with a clean slate" and are "not bound in any way" to the existing corridor being protected.

"You just have to believe them, I guess," said McCoy, who was critical of IDOT's decision last year to protect formally a corridor before the agency ascertained the region's future transportation needs.

"They are going back to where they began and starting in the proper manner," he said. "I have no problem with this process. But corridor protection should have come after this."