Daily Herald
April 29, 2005
‘Spaghetti bowl’ of map lines will be presented to public at forums
By Patrick Waldron
Daily Herald Staff Writer
The proposed Prairie Parkway linking I-88 to I-80 now finds itself all over the map.
After more than two years of studies and information-gathering, the Illinois Department of Transportation has compiled
a list of alternate routes for a north-south traffic corridor to move drivers through Kane, Kendall and Grundy
counties.
“There is a wide range of options we are looking at,” said Edward Leonard, an engineer with IDOT consultant Parsons
Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc. “We’ve got our numbers together, but we have not done any of the screening
because IDOT wants the public’s opinion.”
To get feedback from residents about what one IDOT engineer called a “spaghetti bowl” of options, the department
has scheduled public information meetings for May 10 and 11.
IDOT officials Thursday gave reporters an early look at the information to be presented at those forums in Sugar
Grove and Morris.
It’s all part of a six-year preliminary engineering study and, at this point, summarizes the more than 150 suggestions
IDOT received in 2003 and 2004 as to where a future expressway might be built.
Depicted as a series of color-coded lines on a collection of maps, the options include a mix of potential freeway
corridors, a number of major road improvements or a combination of both. Rick Powell, an IDOT project engineer,
stressed that all the lines came from the public, and local municipal and county leaders and not the state transportation
department.
Any of those lines stand to become alternatives to a freeway corridor mapped out by IDOT in 2002 that cuts through
Kendall County and portions of Kane and Grundy counties.
That corridor quickly became the subject of criticism and a lawsuit brought by about 60 property owners against
the transportation department claiming the corridor designation depresses their property values and violates their
rights.
That lawsuit was dismissed by a Kendall County judge, and earlier this month the Illinois 2nd District Appellate
Court affirmed that dismissal. The lawyer for the landowners said he intends to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
None of the alternatives shown Thursday by IDOT officials align exactly with the existing corridor, but one running
west of Sugar Grove and south through Plano is close.
As for other proposed freeway paths, the options include a roadway running along Kendall County’s western border
and a route along Kendall’s eastern edge, known as the Wikaduke corridor.
A key to any future expressway will be its crossing over the Fox River, Leonard said, and the alternatives show
three options west of Yorkville and two to the east.
Part of the presentation ranked how all of the major freeway and arterial options did in meeting the Prairie Parkway
service area’s four main needs: improving regional mobility, addressing local road deficiencies, improving access
to the area for the work force, and improved safety.
An overall winner in those categories hasn’t been singled out, but Leonard said the data does show expansions of
existing roads, such as a widened Route 47, alone won’t meet the goals.