Public critiques final options for Elgin O'Hare extension
Tim Orlowski wants access for trucks entering and leaving the industrial park where his Franklin Park metal shop is located.
Ken Yang wants whatever will get him to O'Hare Airport faster from his house in Elk Grove Village.
And Lois Weber just doesn't want her house in Bensenville impacted at all.
Scores of local residents filtered in and out Thursday's public hearing regarding the final two options for the extension of the Elgin O'Hare Expressway and western bypass of the airport with suggestions, but almost everyone supported the projects.
The Illinois Department of Transportation held the hearing after releasing a comprehensive environmental impact report last month.
"There are no environmental showstoppers," said Pete Harmet, IDOT's bureau chief of programming.
Data gathered at the hearing will be used by the stakeholder working group in early December to determine which option will be the final recommendation made to federal transportation officials who will make the final decision in the middle of 2010, IDOT officials said.
Both options are essentially identical regarding an extension of the existing east/west Elgin O'Hare Expressway from its terminus near Itasca to the airport along what is now Thorndale Avenue. The proposals also call for the current thoroughfare to be widened.
Where the proposals differ is the western bypass plan.
One calls for the whole project to be an expressway that uses airport property and would cost $3.6 billion. The other option would use York Road as the northern end of the bypass from where it meets the end of the new Elgin O'Hare and is projected to cost $2.8 billion.
Most of the visitors at Thursday's public hearing told IDOT to go big.
"I'd want them to go with the full expressway," said Bill Madden, a contractor from St. Charles. "If you're going to go to the bother of building it, do it right."
The other difference in the western bypass plan is on the south end, where one proposal has the expressway going through Bensenville and the other has it going through Franklin Park. Bensenville officials have vehemently opposed the proposal that calls for land to be used there, but recently Franklin Park leaders approved a resolution supporting the expressway through that community. Less residential property has to be bought with the Franklin Park plan, but more commercial property is required, which tacks on about $1.4 million extra to the cost.
Financing for the project has yet to be shored up. The federal government has committed $140 million so far. Currently, both expressways are planned as free roads, but one way to secure funding would be to involve the tollway authority, officials said.
Thursday's hearing in Elk Grove Village lasted four hours, and officials from the state as well as a number of its hired consultants were on hand to answer questions from the public. They expected upward of 1,000 people to attend throughout the evening. Public comment on this segment of the proposal ends Oct. 26. Stakeholders can still express their concerns or support at elginohare-westbypass.org.