CBS Channel 2 News
Chicago
August 10, 2005
Suzanne Le Mignot Reporting
(CBS) MONTGOMERY, Ill. The massive transportation bill signed by President Bush on Wednesday includes $207 million for a pet project of U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert -- a new road connecting two major highways in northern Illinois that state officials aren't convinced is the way to go and some locals oppose.
While the President and House Speaker Dennis Hastert are excited about the Prairie Parkway, reaction is mixed in the far western suburbs. The road would run north and south, connecting I-88 near Kaneville to I-80 in Minooka.
CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot looks at why the debate won't die down anytime soon.
"Well, this farm and this community mean everything to me," said farm owner Marvel Davis..
Davis has called this farm in Big Rock home for 55 years. The 78-year-old grows corn soybeans wheat and hay on the farm that has been in her family since 1836. The proposed Prairie Parkway would go right through her land.
"As it cuts through that 70-acre field, which is the best soil that I've got on the farm, one triangle of that is lost to me forever," Davis said.
She says those in favor of the parkway, or beltway as she calls it, should find other options like widening the existing roads.
"I just think we need to be educated about where we do get our food," Davis said.
While Davis sees the proposed parkway as a way of bringing about even more development in this area and less farmland, others say it's a way of easing traffic congestion.
The Kane County board chairman says Kane and Kendall counties are growing and 20 years from now the Prairie Parkway will be a necessity.
"It'll be harder and harder for employers to get their goods to market, for the farmers to get their goods to market, for employees to get to work," said Karen McConnaughay, Kane County board chairman.
There's no set timetable for the proposed parkway to become reality, so both sides must wait and see what happens next.
While Hastert would like to see a road connecting Interstates 80 and 88 across the small towns and farming areas 55 miles west of Chicago, the state won't decide whether to build it until next year.
A preliminary engineering study on the transportation needs of the area, which includes Grundy, Kane and Kendall counties, is not expected to be done until 2008, he said. The $207 million for the proposed connector highway would not be used until that study is done, he said.