Summer construction will create up to 1,314 jobs in Kane County

With a single vote this week the Kane County Board wrote a check totaling $37.5 million that will buy it better transportation and about 1,300 jobs if estimates prove true.

The board locked in construction bids for its list of summer highway projects this week. The list contains the largest number of projects with the highest cost that the county has ever undertaken. That list includes the next step in the creation of the Stearns Road Bridge, which will provide a new route over the Fox River. A general lack of vehicle crossings over the river is one of the major causes of congestion in the region. The Stearns Road project is decades in the making, but should finally be complete by the end of 2010. It is the single largest and most complex project in the county's history.

The county is using a U.S. Department of Transportation formula that suggests every $1 million invested in transportation projects creates 35 jobs. Although the next phase of the Stearns Road project came in substantially below the estimated cost, the price tag is still $23.3 million. The county estimates the project will account for 817 new jobs. That's good news for many construction workers. Back in February, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 reported nearly one-third of its members, some 7,000 people, were unemployed.

"Putting good people to work for an extended period during these tough economic times gives myself, and the entire county board, a great deal of satisfaction," Kane County Board Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Wyatt said in a written statement.

Besides Stearns Road, the bulk of the job creation will come in the form of road repairs from an especially brutal past six months on local thoroughfares. That work is expected to create about 152 new jobs. Substantial portions of Randall Road (including at Red Gate Road in St. Charles and U.S. 20 in Elgin) will also see major work.