Act now to prevent bad Route 53 decision

Wake up, Libertyville, before it is too late. The Route 53 “Blue Ribbon Committee” is designing a road that will come as a shock to you.

First some background: The planning stage is funded and under way by IDOT to make western Peterson Road into a four-lane limited-access expressway. Why? Well, if you drive west down Peterson Road, you see a couple of mega-farms but what you don’t see is the family farm, the pickup truck or the farm dog. Those farms are gone forever.

The land now belongs to two huge developments as follows: the 900-acre Central Range project and the 640-acre Cornerstone Project.

These developments include industrial & commercial buildings, huge truck terminals, and various housing.

Has the Blue Ribbon Committee studied the effect this development will have on Peterson Road between the new Route 53 and the existing Illinois 294 Tollway to the east? If Route 53 will not help dissipate this traffic, then Libertyville’s Peterson Road shopping area will become the Lake County equivalent of Golf Road in Schaumburg with unprecedented numbers of semi-trucks and autos driving through Libertyville on their way to the “real” Illinois Tollway.

The “Blue Ribbon Committee” will not be giving you the six-lane superhighway as it now exists up to Lake Cook Road. Instead, you will be getting a four-lane road with a speed limit of 45 mph. An extended construction period may cause Route 53 to end at Peterson Road for a period of years. Possibly there will be no highway connection via Route 120, forcing all the bypass traffic from the tollway system through Libertyville on Peterson Road.

So I repeat: “Wake up, Libertyville.”

The next meeting is 1 p.m. Friday, May 18, at the Lake County Permit Center in Libertyville.

James Schuler

Libertyville