Extra costs adding up on Buffalo Grove road projects

Buffalo Grove is paying a larger engineering bill on upcoming improvements to both Weiland Road/Prairie Road and Lake-Cook Road.

Village trustees Monday approved spending an additional $460,000 to cover the first phase of engineering for the project, which involves widening Weiland Road from two to four lanes between Lake-Cook and Aptakisic roads, and widening Lake-Cook from Hastings Lane to Raupp Boulevard from four lanes to six lanes.

The funding includes $241,000 for work on Lake-Cook, which will be reimbursed by Cook County. The balance of $226,000 covers the work for Weiland/Prairie, 83 percent of which is being reimbursed Lake County, leaving Buffalo Grove to spend the remaining $38,000 out of reserves.

The only vote against paying the bill came from Trustee Andrew Stein.

“It just seems like it’s such a large addendum,” he said, saying he had been told during the budgetary process that there would be no further expenditures.

Director of Public Works Gregory Boysen said the village believes the additional funds will cover the completion of the Phase I study. Thus far, about $1 million has been spent on engineering for the project, which is expected to be complete by 2016. The next step in the process is for neighborhood residents impacted by traffic noise to vote on whether to install noise walls. That, Village Manager Dane Bragg said, should be wrapped up in the next month or so.

Noise walls are proposed both along Lake-Cook Road between Lexington Drive and Weiland Road and on Weiland between Deerfield Parkway and an area just north of Lake-Cook.

If residents choose them, they’ll have to meet the standards of the Federal Highway Administration and be approved by the transportation departments in Lake and Cook counties.

Village officials said the noise wall issue is one reason for the added engineering costs. It used to be that the village board would have authority over the noise wall process. Now it is a resident-driven process that involves meetings and a final vote.

“A lot of it was tied back to the noise wall issue and the way the hearing process regulation changed,” Bragg said. “We have had quite a few dollars racked up ... to get those things accomplished.”