Hope for Route 45 improvements in Vernon Hills
Vernon Hills officials hope a major road improvement envisioned for years will make it from the wish list to the to-do list.
Widening a five-mile stretch of Route 45, mostly through Vernon Hills but including portions of Mundelein, Indian Creek and Lincolnshire, has been a priority for the village for some time.
More than three years ago, the village pushed for funding from a proposed increase in the Lake County sales tax. But that idea failed at the polls. The Route 45 project was not on the state's construction list and again went dormant.
Representatives from the communities and the Illinois Department of Transportation and Lake County Division of Transportation met recently to discuss advancing the plan.
"All the communities were there, even Indian Creek," said Vernon Hills Village Manager Mike Allison. "Our communities are interested in it, (but) we've got to keep that interest going."
Renewed optimism has been a result of a new pool of sales tax money authorized by Regional Transportation Authority reform. Lake County expects to receive about $29 million per year in additional revenue for road work. In 2011, it plans to issue $100 million in bonds to fund several large-scale projects. Which ones depend on how far along they are in the planning process.
Widening Route 21 north of Route 137 to Route 120, and Route 60/83 south of Route 176 to the EJ&E railroad crossing also are in the mix.
Road projects take years to reach the construction stage, beginning with Phase 1, which includes public input.
"It's also scoping out the job. It's basically putting a design together," Allison said. How much right-of-way is needed, for example, already has been determined.
Phase 1 work for Route 45 - a project estimated to cost $50 million to $70 million - is about 80 percent complete. A public hearing tentatively is scheduled for November, but Phase 1 still would not be finished until Fall 2009.
The village is pushing the state to provide about $5 million for Phase 2, which results in bid documents for the project. That would take about two years and represent perfect timing for the county grant, Allison said.
The Route 21 widening north of Route 120 is well into Phase 2 and is expected to be ready for construction in about a year. The Route 60/83 project is about a year behind Route 45.
Allison said if the state passes a capital spending bill, it would be possible to leverage 80 percent of the cost from the federal government, leaving 20 percent to state or local sources. With that split, all three projects could be funded, he said.