Projects to make it easier to get around Mount Prospect

Mount Prospect commuters can expect to have a little more waiting room at the village's downtown Metra station, and drivers can expect fewer delays after the Union Pacific railroad verbally agreed to build an eastward extension of the station platform.

"That would have a meaningful impact on reducing delays and backups, primarily at the (Route) 83 intersection (with Northwest Highway)," Mount Prospect Public Works Director Sean Dorsey told village board members last week.

Mount Prospect will foot the bill for the construction, Dorsey said. The village is waiting for a cost estimate, he added.

Dorsey noted that Union Pacific is trying to divest itself of its commuter railway operations. It wants someone else to own the commuter parking lots and the platforms.

The extended platform isn't the only thing Mount Prospect has in the works for making it easier to get around town.

Dorsey discussed planned improvements to pedestrian crossings along Central Road. In the works over the next three years are improvements at Pine Street, costing $510,000; at Cathy Lane, with a price tag of $400,000; at Weller Lane, with a $120,000 cost; and at We Go Trail, with a $400,000 estimate.

He also mentioned that improvements to the Northwest Highway and Mount Prospect Road intersection are on the horizon. They would include traffic signal and railroad equipment upgrades, pedestrian crossing signals, pedestrian railway gates, and roadway lighting.

"One of the common accidents that seems to happen over there is folks turn into a train," he said.

The project is being developed by the Illinois Department of Transportation, with cost sharing from the village and Des Plaines.