Thanks to $12.5 million in funding secured by local state legislators, people using the Longmeadow Parkway bridge over the Fox River will not need to pay a toll when it opens next year.
“I made a promise to the people of my district that this brid
Thanks to $17.5 million in funding secured by local state legislators, people using the Longmeadow Parkway bridge over the Fox River will not need to pay a toll when it opens next year. (Gloria Casas / The Courier-News)
e would not become a toll bridge,” said state Rep. Suzanne Ness, D-Crystal Lake, whose District 66 includes parts of Algonquin, Carpentersville and Elgin.
“We’ve needed another way of passage across the Fox River, and it would be wrong to ask working families to pay more than they already do just to go to work, get groceries or take kids to a sports field,” she said.
The $100 million Longmeadow Parkway Corridor is a 5.6-mile roadway that runs through portions of unincorporated Kane County, Algonquin, Carpentersville and Barrington Hills. Funded with a mix of federal, state and local money, it is designed to relieve traffic congestion in northern Kane County.
The Kane County Board authorized the sale of bonds to cover its share of the bridge expense and planned to collect tolls from bridge users in order to repay the debt. The toll cost was expected to be about $1.75 to $1.95.
The additional funding needed for the bridge was included in the state’s newly passed 2023-24 budget. In addition to Ness, state Reps. Anna Moeller, D-Elgin, and Don DeWitte, R-St. Charles, advocated for it in the last legislative session.
More here.
