About $10 million in federal funding that had been earmarked for a project to ease traffic congestion in McHenry County is missing from the state’s inventory of road projects, triggering an outcry from local officials and the congressman who helped secure the money.In addition, up to $24 million in state funding for the long-awaited Algonquin western bypass has been yanked from the Illinois highway improvement program and diverted to other projects, prompting outrage from local, state and federal officials.
U.S. Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.) on Monday called the missing funds “the last straw” and led a host of other leaders to call on Gov. Rod Blagojevich to restore funding for the long-sought project.
On Monday, the Illinois Department of Transportation could not account for the money either, other than to say it apparently had not yet been “programmed” into the multiyear list of projects.
“It doesn’t mean it has disappeared or is jeopardized,” said IDOT spokesman Mike Claffey.
The bypass, a new highway that would skirt downtown Algonquin, is intended to divert traffic on Illinois Highway 31, a major north-south thoroughfare, around its intersection with Illinois Highway 62 in the heart of the village.
In 2005, Manzullo and U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama secured $10 million for a northern extension of the project to widen Illinois 31, but that money is nowhere to be found in the state’s program. Manzullo’s office on Monday asked what happened to it.
“We’re just trying to figure out what’s going on,” said Manzullo spokesman Rich Carter. “I don’t know what happened to that $10 million. I don’t know how you can just eliminate federal money.”
Up to $44 million in state and federal funding, enough to complete the project, had been earmarked for the bypass in 1999.
The cost of the project has since risen to more than $67 million, according to the McHenry County Transportation Department.
But over the past few years, IDOT has diverted bypass funds to other projects, even as federal officials have scrambled to procure more federal money.
“For years, the state…has ignored McHenry County’s road needs despite the fact that this is one of the most congested counties in the state,” Manzullo said Monday in a statement.
“While [the U.S.] Congress has twice invested in this vital western bypass project, the state has now pulled all the state funding and shelved it indefinitely. This is outrageous.”
The latest state five-year highway program only lists $8.7 million for land acquisition for the bypass project, and nothing for construction. And that amount represents the federal money acquired by Manzullo in 1998 when the bypass was designated a “high-priority” project.
About $24 million in funding for the bypass has been diverted to other pressing highway needs, including various resurfacing projects and bridge maintenance around the state, Claffey said.
Without a statewide capital program, “we’ve had to devote most of the funding to maintaining the system we have,” Claffey said.
In their letter to Blagojevich, local legislators, county officials and mayors said McHenry County was in dire need of traffic relief.
County residents receives only a “negligible” return on the $22 million they pay each year in motor fuel taxes, the officials said.
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rwronski@tribune.com
