Downers Grove officials reacted with horror in January 1999 when two motorists died in separate rail-crossing accidents in the village within hours of each other.
The deaths, however, became a catalyst for a small and informal task force of local officials and state legislators.
The group began working about a year ago to build support and find sources of funding for the construction of a highway underpass at busy Belmont Road and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks in Downers Grove.
On Wednesday, task force members hope to gain firm commitments for the project when they convene a summit that will bring together top officials from the Illinois Department of Transportation, DuPage County government and Metra, the Chicago area’s commuter rail agency.
Downers Grove officials had talked for decades about the need for routes under or over the railroad tracks that divide the community, said Mayor Brian Krajewski, who helped set up the task force shortly after he was elected last year.
Krajewski noted, however, that there is a long list of dangerous rail crossings in Chicago’s suburbs.
“Unless Downers Grove took the lead,” he said, “and pushed and worked to get all of the parties together, it wasn’t going to get done. … We really pushed the project.”
Four-lane Belmont Road is one of six rail crossings in Downers Grove. At each of them, the pavement now meets the tracks at grade level.
Because there are no underpasses, the potential for rail-crossing delays also poses a problem for emergency vehicles and ambulances en route from the south side of Downers Grove to Good Samaritan Hospital in the north part of town.
Belmont Road is a heavily used commuter station on Metra’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe line, attracting about 1,500 passengers a day.
Several nearby businesses offer commuter parking, and Krajewski said northbound traffic backs up sometimes across the tracks as motorists wait to make left turns.
On Jan. 4, 1999, a 34-year-old Woodridge man was killed when his car was caught on the tracks at Belmont Road as the crossing gates came down. Earlier that morning, a 55-year-old Lombard man died when the van he was driving was struck by an eastbound train at Maple Avenue in Downers Grove.
Belmont Road also was identified as one of the more dangerous rail crossings in a county report last year.
In May 1999, Krajewski and state Rep. Patricia Bellock (R-Hinsdale), whose district includes parts of Downers Grove, put together a working group that also included County Board member Wallace Brown (R-Downers Grove) and Beverly Fawell, then a state senator and chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Committee.
State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) also became involved in the efforts.
Since then, the group has met separately with various officials and agencies to lobby for the project.
“Now we want to bring everybody together in the same room to meet face-to-face,” Bellock said.
Funding for what is expected to be at least a $17 million project would come from federal and state sources, with a possible contribution from Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
Plans call for lowering Belmont Road between about Haddow Avenue and Curtiss Street.
Metra already has earmarked $1.25 million for engineering work and the start of land acquisition. But it probably will be two or three years before construction begins, said a Metra spokesman.
