DuPage County Board members have approved an agreement with the Illinois Department of Transportation to share the cost of an engineering study intended to look at ways to upgrade a busy, deteriorating stretch of North Avenue in the northwest part of the county.
DuPage will pay half of the estimated $2 million cost.
The agreement was approved Tuesday at a County Board meeting called to take up matters that had been left in the lurch when last week’s regularly scheduled meeting ended in disarray.
The meeting a week ago adjourned abruptly after board members approved a controversial resolution indicating their willingness to pay the legal fees for the so-called DuPage 7–four sheriff’s deputies and three former prosecutors facing criminal misconduct charges that they fabricated evidence against Rolando Cruz, who was sentenced to death but later exonerated in the 1983 slaying of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico.
State and local officials agree that North Avenue–also known as Illinois Highway 64–needs widening and repairs on a heavily traveled 3-mile stretch between Illinois Highway 59 and Kautz Road in West Chicago.
West Chicago Mayor Steven Lakics also wants a reduction in the speed limit.
