Growing opposition to the proposed Fox Valley Expressway in eastern Kane County could threaten to stop the project in the same way that a public outcry defeated it in McHenry County.
Just about every mayor along the proposed expressway`s Elgin-to-Aurora stretch now says it no longer makes sense to talk about a six-lane, $2 billion freeway east of the Fox River, an area rapidly filling in with development.
Among the highway`s few supporters is Senate Minority Leader James
”Pate” Philip (R-Wood Dale). But as in McHenry County, it is uncertain whether even Philip can overcome strong opposition to the road from every town along its right-of-way.
”Gov. (Jim) Edgar will have to weigh the political viability of this thing,” said Batavia Mayor Jeffery Schielke. ”Right now you`ve got a piece of pork on the table, but you don`t have a whole lot of people willing to take a slice of it.”
”They wanted to create a route before the area was too heavily built up. Well, they`re too late,” said Elgin Mayor George Van de Voorde.
Even Thomas Marziani, chairman of the Du Page Airport Authority, which supports the Foxway, acknowledged: ”If someone is running for election at this time, he`d better be against (the freeway) if he wants the votes.”
The airport authority owns development land south of Du Page Airport and could benefit from having an expressway nearby.
Philip has compared the Fox Valley Freeway with the North-South Tollway in its potential for speeding up traffic and relieving congestion in the western suburbs. Philip was out of town and unavailable for comment Tuesday, but a spokesman said the senator continued to support the project despite the growing opposition.
To be sure, the Illinois Department of Transportation could do as some have suggested and move the study area for its proposed highway to the west side of the Fox River.
But traffic projections point to the present, easterly routing as being the most effective alignment for pulling traffic off local roads and relieving congestion in both eastern Kane County and western Du Page County.
Anti-freeway sentiment has been stirring for years along the central Fox. But the movement took on new life three weeks ago, when McHenry County citizens and environmental groups succeeded in getting the state to kill the proposed expressway north of the Northwest Tollway (Interstate Highway 90).
The north leg initially had the backing of Albert Jourdan, McHenry County auditor and state Republican Party chairman. Jourdan, however, rescinded his support on Sept. 10 after weeks of public discord and growing pressure on GOP candidates in McHenry County.
Later that day, Illinois Transportation Secretary Kirk Brown halted feasibility studies for the road north of the Northwest Tollway. Studies continue south of Interstate 90 to Interstate Highways 55 and 80 near Joliet. It did not take long for Elgin residents opposed to the project to demand action of their own government officials. The Elgin City Council, already on the record opposing a Fox Valley Expressway west of Illinois Highway 59, is scheduled to meet as a Committee of the Whole on Oct. 14 to consider restating its opposition in even stronger terms, Van de Voorde said.
At the opposite end of the corridor, the state rejected Aurora`s request that the Fox Valley Freeway be routed west of the city, preferring an alignment through the city`s east side. So, Aurora now contends that no expressway is necessary south of the East-West Tollway (Interstate Highway 88).
Traffic projections through the year 2010 do not warrant a freeway from Aurora to Joliet; existing arterial roads should be improved instead, said Aurora community development director Rusty Erickson.
The airport authority`s Marziani defended the Fox Valley Expressway, saying: ”We think planning should start now, because it`s inevitable we`ll have to have (the expressway) because of the traffic. What would have happened without the North-South Tollway, or the Tri-State Tollway?”
As for an alignment west of the Fox, ”that would be fine maybe 40 years from now, but I don`t think it would solve the traffic problems now” east of the river, Marziani said.
St. Charles Mayor Fred T.L. Norris responded, ”We`ve always said from the day it was first proposed that the expressway should go on the other
(west) side of Illinois 47, where there is still open space.”
As currently envisioned, the expressway would follow one of two possible alignments south from the Northwest Tollway.
The road would skirt the east side of Elgin and run south, parallel to the Kane-Du Page line, somewhere within a corridor roughly bounded by Illinois 59 on the east and Dunham and Kirk Roads on the west.
It would take chunks of the Tri-County State Park or Pratts Wayne Woods Forest Preserve, some Du Page Airport land south of North Avenue, and the east or west extremities of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
After crossing the East-West Tollway, the expressway would follow one of three possible routes between Aurora and Naperville, and then strike out across open country along the Will-Kendall County line.
But Warren Kammerer, chairman of the Kane County Board, agreed with his mayors that ”it`s now a little too late” to run an expressway east of the Fox River.
The center line for the freeway should have been laid down in the late 1960s when the highway was first proposed, Kammerer said. Now, he added,
”it`s too expensive for what they want to accomplish. They ought to look at other north-south routes that are available . . . such as Illinois 59 and Illinois 47.”
An Illinois 59 alignment probably would be more disruptive, particularly to West Chicago, than routes now under consideration. But Kane County politicians would benefit because that would put the road entirely in Du Page County.
Another suggested alternate, Randall Road, is west of the Fox River and closer in than Illinois 47. However, Kammerer said that it is too late to build even there: ”You`d be disrupting communities up and down the edge of the Fox River Valley.”
”How do you find a center line that`s least disruptive?” asked Thomas A. Zarle, president of Aurora University. ”How do you fit it in?”
Zarle, who recently resigned as chairman of the state`s Citizens Advisory Committee on the Fox Valley Freeway, said, ”There will be a need to sit down around the table to think hard how to minimize the impact of picking a route, a center line, for this.”
