Mundelein trail link expands bike route

Residents of Cambridge West subdivision and public officials gather at Noll Park in Mundelein today to cut the ribbon on five-year-old plan to create a bike path that links three parks and provides a connection that ultimately can take riders to Lake Michigan.

"It took a long, long time," said Mundelein Assistant Village Manager Mike Flynn.

The path runs for just under a mile along a village street and then in a new 2,000-foot long section along ComEd power lines through Noll Park, which is just west of Butterfield Road near Huntington Drive North. An arched steel bridge takes riders and hikers over the Seavey drainage ditch, and connects with Libertyville Township's 1.7-mile long Canterbury trail loop.

That also has a connection to the Lake County Forest Preserve District's North Shore Bike Path, an 18-mile route that runs east-west along Route 176 to Sheridan Road in Lake Bluff.

"This is a great connection," said Libertyville Township Supervisor Betty-Ann Moore.

The North Shore path also crosses the Des Plaines River Trail, which runs the length of Lake County from north to south.

"Really what it does is open up the whole Cambridge West neighborhood," Flynn said. "We're really fortunate to be able to do that."

The idea was to link Concord, Hanrahan and Noll parks. The new trail also runs along Washington Boulevard north from Allanson Road. Paving and other work was done on Washington to accommodate five-foot wide bike lanes on either side.

"We got not only a bike path, but a rebuilt street," Flynn said.

Originally, the proposal also called for a spur west to Lions Park along the Seavey ditch, but the right-of-way was too narrow, he said.

"It was good on paper, but we had to eventually drop about 30 percent of what we originally wanted to do," Flynn said.

The project involves agreements with the township and Mundelein Park and Recreation District. Total cost was about $900,000. The federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grant accounts for 80 percent of the funding.

The village paid $141,000 and is responsible for maintaining the street portion of the trail, and the park district contributed $50,000 and will maintain the trail portion east from Thomas Boulevard.