Barrington push for Lake Zurich Road shift officially ends
Barrington's quest for a realignment of Lake Zurich Road through property belonging to the village's library has officially ended.
Lake Zurich Road has dropped from a list of projects in line for funding through the federal surface transportation program handled by the Northwest Council of Mayors Technical Committee. Barrington Village President Karen Darch chairs the committee that has other mayors and village managers as members who identify and address local transportation improvements.
Federal money was supposed to fund 50 percent of the $5.9 million Lake Zurich Road shift through Barrington Area Library's parking lot to a traffic signal at Berry Road, with the state and village chipping in 25 percent each. However, library board members in April voted to end negotiations with the village over the sale of land to accommodate the project.
As a result of the library board's decision, documents that were part of the transportation's group's meeting Thursday in Barrington classified the Lake Zurich Road proposal as "to be determined."
"That money isn't available to do that now even if you wanted to," Darch said after the meeting.
A stop sign currently controls traffic for right and left turns from westbound Lake Zurich Road onto Northwest Highway. Village officials cited safety concerns in pushing for an agreement to allow Lake Zurich Road to feed into Berry at Northwest Highway.
While some library board members said they share village officials' position about safety at about Lake Zurich Road and Northwest Highway, they agreed the potential remedies should not involve the facility's property.
Part of the project called for a new parking area with more spaces at no cost to the library, a new walkway along Northwest Highway and an entrance ending the need for patrons to walk through parking lot traffic to get inside. Village statistics show 37 crashes in the immediate area of Lake Zurich Road and Northwest Highway from May 2013 to April 3.