Route 47 widening plan hearing is May 30 in Sugar Grove
The state plans to widen Route 47 from Sugar Grove to Yorkville and is soliciting public comment on the proposal.
A public hearing will be conducted from 4 to 7 p.m. May 30 at the Community House, 141 Main St. in Sugar Grove.
The state wants to widen the road to four lanes from Cross Street in Sugar Grove to Kennedy Road in Yorkville.
It also would put in a raised median, and a bicycle/walking path. A noise-abatement wall would be built north and south of Rolling Oaks Drive in Sugar Grove.
The documents and drawings presented at the public hearing also will be available for two weeks after at the Sugar Grove Village Hall, 10 S. Municipal Drive, and the Yorkville City Hall, 800 Game Farm Road.
Comments may be submitted in writing to the Illinois Department of Transportation's District 3 office at 700 E. Norris Drive, Ottawa, IL, 61350.
Officials in Kane and Kendall counties, as well as Yorkville and Sugar Grove leaders, have been pushing for the widening for years.
They suggested that some of the money that was to be spent building the Prairie Parkway be used for the widening, once the federal government killed the Prairie Parkway plan. Federal and state authorities said the $100 million in Prairie Parkway funds could be spent on other projects, but that the projects had to be near the Prairie Parkway corridor.
The Prairie Parkway highway would have run from I-80 west of Minooka to I-88 near Kaneville.
In February, the state canceled the corridor protection plan for the parkway. That plan put restrictions on landowners who wanted to develop their properties.