Route 83 widening long time coming

As the former mayor of downstate Mount Vernon, Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Milton Sees says he knows it can be a struggle for a small town to put together a big project.

So it was relief and excitement that greeted Sees' announcement Monday of a $20 million improvement to nearly five miles of Route 83 through Lake Villa and Antioch, a project that has been on the wish list for years.

The project involves widening the two-lane road to four lanes, and adding median turn lanes from Petite Lake Road in Lake Villa through Antioch and its downtown business district to the Wisconsin state line.

Upgrades to the drainage system and traffic signals, the installation of a sidewalk and other measures also are part of the plan, which would begin next summer and to be completed in fall 2010. The section of road is used by 12,000 motorists each day.

"We've had the engineering completed on this for several years and have been waiting for the funding," said Antioch Mayor Dorothy Larson. "It's wonderful - I can't wait for it to begin."

Sees credited the aggressiveness of state Sen. Michael Bond, a Grayslake Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate transportation committee, with bringing home the project.

"This is a huge project for this area and one that will produce considerable benefit," Sees said. "It's about two years of hell, but you'll be happy when you receive the end product."

Bond, who joined Sees at the Meeting House, a historical museum on Main Street in Antioch, said road projects can take six years from the first planning stage to completion. This one took nine years, he said.

That stretch of Route 83 is an example of the area's "outdated and insufficient network of highways and roads," Bond said.

"You know how frustrated many of these 12,000 drivers can become," he said. He added this section of Route 83 was on a consensus priority list determined by Lake County's local and state officials, and expressed hope it is the first of more big road projects to come.

Specific details of the project are expected to be available at a public town hall meeting next month.