The Cook County Board of Commissioners approved funding at the end of last year to improve transportation in municipalities including Franklin Park and River Forest, officials announced in a news release.
According to the release, these transportation-related projects boost economic development, build up regional transportation and improve the quality of life throughout the county.
“This goes through Invest in Cook,” Franklin Park Village Engineer Tom McCabe told Pioneer Press.
The Cook County Department of Transportation and Highways 2023 Invest in Cook grant program lists $125,000 for preliminary engineering for Franklin Park’s Western O’Hare Industrial Corridor Access project.
McCabe said the $125,000 the county awarded the village of Franklin Park covers 50% of the preliminary engineering study for the intersection of Wolf Road and Addison Avenue and the other 50% of the $250,000 project will be paid for by the village out of the general fund.
“That intersection right now has a lot of traffic congestion just due to the number of trucks mixed in (with) the cars that go through there. So the goal here is to make the truck turning movements easier to navigate,” he said.
McCabe explained that trucks use Frontage Road, which is parallel to Wolf Road, and then need to use the entire intersection at Wolf and Addison to make a 180-degree turn, causing a traffic bottleneck.
“Nobody can go anywhere until these trucks get moving,” he said, adding that truck traffic has more than quadrupled in the last five years due to the industrial area shifting from being all manufacturing facilities to now being all logistics warehouses.
According to McCabe, Phase I of the Western O’Hare Industrial Corridor Access project will determine if truck congestion can be alleviated by dedicated turning lanes, a traffic signal, making the intersection bigger or other solutions.
“Getting trucks in and out of this area is a big boon for both the county and the village. Typically, if (a project’s) generating jobs or generating more business or commerce, they’re all behind it,” he said.
McCabe anticipated Franklin Park sending out requests for qualifications this month and preliminary design work likely starting in April.
“In Phase I they do a topographic survey, check out environmental factors, do traffic counts. Those things don’t take any road closures,” he said.
McCabe estimated that the first of the three-phase Western O’Hare Industrial Corridor Access project could be completed by the end of 2024.
“Phase II is the final engineering and then we’ll be looking for probably some public funding for that, a grant to do that work and after that,” he said.
According to McCabe, the second phase of the project could start in April 2025 and be completed by the end of that year.
“Construction is going to be a few years out,” McCabe said about the intersection safety and mobility improvements to be done in Phase III.
He said the Invest in Cook grant program is also one of several partners for the $30 million project that began in 2022 to widen Franklin Avenue from two lanes to five.
“They just closed up for winter. They have one side done. The north side is complete and next spring they’ll work on the south side,” said McCabe about the Franklin Avenue project, which is slated to be completed in 2024.
According to the Cook County Board release, the $100,000 awarded to nearby River Forest is for construction of sidewalk improvements to reconstruct sidewalk ramps across the village. That project is part of the village’s ADA Sidewalk Improvements.
Jessi Virtusio is a freelancer.
