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Aurora Beacon-News
August 12, 2004

Chicago group joins Prairie Parkway fight

Dueling surveys: State planning telephone poll of residents

By Ed Fanselow
STAFF WRITER

A Chicago-based watchdog group with a history of doing battle with the Illinois Department of Transportation has joined the fight against the proposed Prairie Parkway, saying this week that there is little public support for the project.

The group, Center for Neighborhood Technology, says that an analysis of more than 1,100 citizen comments received by IDOT shows that 75 percent of people living within 15 miles of the proposed highway don't think it should be built.

IDOT officials, however, contend that the comments "are not an accurate gauge" of overall public opinions about the parkway, which if built would connect Interstate 88 with Interstate 80 through far western Kane and Kendall counties.

"Opponents of any project tend to make themselves far more vocal than people who are in favor of it," IDOT spokesman Matt Vanover said Wednesday. "It's undeniable that there are plenty of people with the opposite opinion."

Vanover said that a forthcoming telephone survey about the project will give IDOT "a far more accurate read on what people think." The survey is set to be completed this fall, he said.

Vanover also reiterated that the current plan is hardly set in stone.

As it is envisioned now, the highway would carve a path through Kaneville Township, Big Rock, Plano, Lisbon Center and Minooka.

But that could all change, he said.

A spokesman for the advocacy group, however, said that IDOT seems set in its ways and that the agency "hasn't paid enough attention" to alternative plans.

"We're not saying 'Build it' or 'Don't build it,' " said the spokesman, Jacky Grimshaw. "We're just saying that IDOT needs to review the public comments and take the community input into account before moving ahead."

The Center for Neighborhood Technology and its subsidiary, CATSscan, have taken issue with several projects of the Chicago Area Transportation Study (CATS), the governmental group that directs funding to local transportation-related projects.

08/12/04