DuPage County Board members agreed Tuesday to pay half of a $103,000 study to determine the feasibility of building a commuter train station at the county government complex in Wheaton.
The cost of the study will be shared with Metra, the commuter rail agency for the Chicago area.
Some County Board members have long pushed for at least a partial Metra stop at the complex to accommodate employees, visitors to the county’s Convalescent Center, residents called for jury duty and others with business at the courthouse.
In the past, however, efforts have fizzled over concerns that a train station would attract Chicago-bound commuters and fill up parking spaces at the complex.
Under terms of the agreement between Metra and DuPage, the engineering firm of URS Greiner Woodward Clyde will attempt to determine how many riders would use a new station at the county complex, either as a destination or as a starting point for their commute.
The firm also is to look at potential traffic problems, estimate the need for parking places if a station is built and determine the feasibility of using part of the courthouse garage for parking. It also will try to figure out how to provide free parking for county employees and visitors while charging commuters for parking spaces.
In the past, Metra officials have indicated that if a station is built, they would prefer a full schedule of daily trains.
Citing traffic concerns, board members have proposed a station with a limited number of stops.
DuPage expects that its share of the study will not exceed $51,460.
In other business Tuesday:
– The board voted to approve an ordinance that spells out the circumstances under which county government will pay for the legal defense of its employees.
When introduced last month, officials said that if the measure had been approved earlier, board members might have avoided much of the ugly debate over whether the county should have paid the legal fees of seven current and former law enforcement officials who had been charged with misconduct in the DuPage 7 trial.
Four sheriff’s deputies and three former prosecutors were acquitted in June.
– The board authorized the state’s attorney’s office to begin condemnation proceedings to acquire slightly less than two acres south of Diehl Road in the Cantera development that officials say is needed for flood-control.
Board member Roger Kotecki (R-Glen Ellyn Countryside) chairman of the county’s Stormwater Management Committee, said the land is needed as part of a project underway to repair and upgrade the Fawell Dam on the west branch of the DuPage River.
Kotecki declined to say what the county had offered to pay for the property, but said the parties were “tremendously far apart.”
– The board approved an emergency appropriation that will add $1 million to the county fund used to pay legal fees and court settlements. Officials said Monday at a board committee meeting that expenses were projected to exceed the fund balance as a result of legal fees resulting from the DuPage 7 trial and a recent court-approved settlement in separate litigation.
The additional money will come from the county’s insurance-fund reserves.
