Kane gives Bolz bridge a needed push
Like a new Kane County jail, additional Fox River crossings in a rapidly growing county had been viewed as nearly intractable problems. Endlessly debated, but never solved.
One by one, those thorny problems have fallen before Kane County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay's "let's get it done" leadership, an attitude that has not only rubbed off on Kane board members but on municipal leaders as well.
The jail is set to open in 2008, and the move of the Kane County sheriff's office to that facility, another of those seemingly unsolvable problems, is likely to occur at the same time.
Grading work near Dunham Road where it meets Stearns Road is nearly finished in preparation for more advanced work on a Stearns Road bridge, another of those crossings that existed only in the imagination for a decade and a half.
"I've grown old trying to build this bridge," said U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert, at the Stearns groundbreaking last year. It is expected to be open in some form by 2010.
This week, the Kane board appointed a task force of board members and local mayors to analyze a proposal to build a toll bridge at Bolz Road/Longmeadow Parkway in Dundee Township. That river crossing, too, has been discussed for more than a decade. It split communities and generated so much local heat that Hastert all but washed his hands of involvement. As a result, Stearns, which wasn't as divisive, jumped ahead for funding.
Since then, continued growth and repairs that closed Carpentersville's Main Street bridge, creating nightmarish traffic gridlock, seemed to take the edge off Longmeadow opposition. This spring, leaders from 10 area communities united to push for a toll-financed bridge and then asked the county to help.
The task force's creation marks continuing movement to that end. One of the task force's primary charges is to determine a toll amount and coordinate efforts with the Illinois Toll Highway Authority to use I-PASS as a payment method. We remain skeptical of promises to remove the toll after the initial bonds are paid and would oppose any toll setup that brings traffic to a standstill as old tollway booths did, but otherwise this plan has a great deal of merit. We agree with South Elgin board member Mike Kenyon, who called the proposal a "logical conclusion to a difficult, costly problem."
The bridge, which we have supported for years now, is more than needed. Though $9 million in local, state and federal funding will be expended in the next 18 months and another $4 million was earmarked for the bridge in the 2005 federal transportation package, additional funding beyond those amounts is unlikely. Thus, the majority of the $88 million project has to be funded locally if it is going to get built. There are advantages to local control, however. It could be built within five years, far sooner than is likely under federal or state auspices.
Just more evidence that while state and federal governments are paralyzed by partisanship, local leaders at least are still finding ways to solve those difficult problems.