Aurora is looking at paying a more than $300,000 bill some seven years after it was incurred.
And Jason Bauer, of the city’s Public Works Department, joked recently that even though the bill from the Illinois Department of Transportation came seven years late, the state wants the money soon.
“Usually when they do bill us, they give us like a week to pay it,” he told aldermen on the City Council Finance Committee recently.
The $320,509 bill was for work done on the Route 34 bridge over the Canadian National Railroad tracks near Frontenac Road in the city’s East Side 8th Ward.
The bridge was in the planning since 2008 and was started in 2013. It was finished in 2016.
Route 34, also known as Ogden Avenue and the Walter Payton Memorial Highway, is an important artery for buses going to and from Indian Prairie School District schools, as well as an ambulance route for Rush Copley Medical Center.
The Route 34 crossing was long-considered a safety problem, particularly when two teens were killed at the crossing in 1999.
But the real impetus for the bridge project was when Canadian National bought the former Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad tracks, and put up to seven times the number of trains previously on the tracks.
IDOT built the overpass, with Canadian National paying about two-thirds of the cost, or about $30 million. IDOT paid $15 million, which left the city of Aurora to pay only $400,000 for water mains in the area and railings. The bill to be paid is part of that water main work.
Finance Committee members recommended paying the bill, which now goes to the council’s Committee of the Whole meeting Tuesday.
Ald. Edward Bugg, 9th Ward, joked that at the time the bridge was built, state officials bragged that the project was “on time and under budget.”
“That was the mantra,” he said.
Bauer said the project probably was under budget overall, but the city had to pay for the water mains, which technically had nothing to do with the bridge itself.
“Well, we got this (bridge) for a steal,” Bugg said. “Let’s pay it and go.”
