Chicago Tribune
Sept. 21, 2007
By William Presecky
Tribune staff reporter
Opponents of the proposed Prairie Parkway through Kane, Kendall and
Grundy Counties are continuing to press for alternative transportation
improvements in the area, despite the recent approval of a state budget
that includes more than $32 million of work this year on the estimated
$1 billion, 37-mile project.
About $6.5 million of the total budgeted for fiscal year 2008, which
runs through June, is state funds. The balance is slated to come from
the $207 million in federal funds dedicated for a north-south connector
west of Illinois Highway 47 linking Interstate Highways 88 and 80.
The 47+ Coalition, which is opposed to the parkway project, is pressing
to have the federal funding shifted to improving Illinois 47,
"particularly through Yorkville and north to I-88," said Jan Strasma,
chairman of Citizens Against the Sprawlway.
Strasma's group is one of nearly a dozen environmental, farm and public-interest organizations opposed to the parkway.
Parkway project manager Rick Powell said the Illinois Department of
Transportation didn't hide more than $46 million in state funding for
the first phase of the project, from Illinois Highway 71 to U.S.
Highway 30, during the next six years.
"It's no secret that the work was planned all along," Powell said. "It
was proposed in April. I guess it's news because the budget is approved
now."
"This means that actual work, other than studying, could begin,"
Strasma said. "With the budget debacle, no one quite knew where IDOT
was going to come out on this. Obviously, now they have [state] money
in their operating budget at least for the first year's work."
The federal funding for the project cannot be accessed until late this year or early next year.