February 17th Roads & Bridges Meeting recordings posted

Audio recordings from the February 17th Meeting of the Roads & Bridges Committee have been posted to the Village website.  To access the main menu of recordings edited by agenda topic, click here

There were two speakers during the public comment portion of the meeting who referenced the current fight against the Longmeadow Parkway, and their remarks can be heard here

Agenda items that were discussed during the short meeting included clarification of jurisdiction of the Green Rail Bridge which carries Oak Knoll Road over Flint Creek.  It has been determined that the Village and Cuba Township each control 50% of the bridge and a memo will be prepared to reflect the agreed-upon sharing of on-going maintenance costs.

The long-discussed permit for the second driveway onto Church Road for the proposed Barrington Hills Farm/HARPS facility, located at the northeast corner of Church and Chapel has finally been issued.  Thankfully, no representatives of the farm were in attendance to sling out their usual protests, accusations and innuendos.

The meeting proceeded smoothly to a review of upcoming 2017 construction projects  within Barrington Hills which are planned by Cook and Kane Counties.  Cook County Department of Transportation confirmed that  resurfacing of Brinker Road, from Route 62 to County Line Road, and of Otis Road, from Old Sutton to Brinker Road is on the schedule, although construction may not begin until 2018.

Kane County has noted that the Longmeadow Parkway is their priority project for the year and the portion of the project in Barrington Hills from IL 62 to east of IL 25, was described as having a target letting of “late summer/fall 2017”, with construction in 2017 and 2018.

Seasonal posting of weight limit reductions on all village roads will begin on February 27th and is expected to last until the beginning of May.  No overweight truck traffic  (over ten tons) will be allowed on village maintained roads during this period in order to protect the roads from damage during the freeze/thaw cycle.

 Lastly, Chapel Road is scheduled to be resurfaced on this year’s road program.  A review of the history of water flooding over the road from the two wetlands located on either side of Chapel took place.  Given the uncertainty of the construction schedule for the proposed HARPS facility, Chairman Brian Cecola suggested that perhaps work on Chapel Road should be delayed until the HARPS construction has concluded, in order to prevent damage from semis and other overweight construction related vehicles.  Cecola directed that the engineers should suggest an alternate road for inclusion in this year’s program, should Chapel be deferred for another year.  Fritz Gohl suggested speaking to the landowners to both the north and south of the road to see if they would be willing to perform some work on their properties to help lower the level of the water in the wetlands and to prevent, or at least reduce, some of the road flooding.

The recording of the full discussion section can be heard here