Wheeling, Buffalo Grove settle over costs of incomplete bike path

Wheeling and Buffalo Grove officials have reached an agreement over the cost of an incomplete bike path connecting the towns' train stations.

Earlier this week, the Wheeling village board approved a settlement requiring Buffalo Grove to pay Wheeling $40,000 for its share in the project, a Wheeling official said Thursday.

Buffalo Grove already has approved the settlement, worked out in the Cook County Circuit Court.

Buffalo Grove Village Manager William Brimm said the project was first proposed in 1994. The bicycle path would have extended an existing path running from Mount Prospect and Prospect Heights.

The extended path, a part of which would have run underneath Lake-Cook Road parallel to the Canadian National Railway tracks, would have linked the Wheeling and Buffalo Grove Metra stations along the North Central Service.

Funding for the $560,000 project was supposed to have been provided through a partnership of the two villages and their respective park districts and Rotary clubs, along with a grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Over time, however, the project's cost increased, mainly due to the double-tracking of the North Central Service, which required an extra buffer built between the tracks and the path.

By 2004, estimated costs had ballooned to $1.4 million and around that time Buffalo Grove dropped out of the project. At that point, however, Wheeling had already spent money on engineering and design and came back asking Buffalo Grove for its share of the cost. Eventually the case went to court.

"It's a fair settlement," Brimm said. "It allows both communities to move on in their relationship with each other."

Brimm added that the Buffalo Grove Park District will eventually pay its share, which will be smaller than the village's.

• Staff writer Madhu Krishnamurthy contributed to this report.