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Archive for the ‘Longmeadow Parkway’ Category

RCBH Track

Per the Barrington Hills Park District website:

“Forest Preserve Master Plan Presentation for Horizon Farm & Spring Creek

When: Nov. 8, 2023 – 7:00 p.m.

Where: The Riding (Club’s) Meeting Room, 361 Bateman Road, Barrington Hills

What:  The Forest Preserve District of Cook County (FPDCC) developed a long-term, comprehensive master plan for Horizon Farm and Spring Creek which they will share with the public.

You are welcome to attend the meeting to learn the details of how this plan addresses conservation and recreational issues.

Share your thoughts with the forest preserve about their future development of Horizon Farm and Spring Creek. The Park District will present your comments to the Forest Preserve representatives.”

Editorial note: It’s concerning recommendations are being sent to the Park District only instead copying officials at the Forest Preserves of Cook County.

Therefore, we strongly encourage residents save their suggestions submitted to the Park District, and utilize the official Forest Preserves of Cook County “Contact Form” to directly communicate those recommendations under the, ”Planning and Development,” category. Make sure your comments reference, “Future development of Horizon Farm and Spring Creek.”

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When: Oct 11, 2023, 7:00 p.m.

Where: The Riding Club Meeting Room, 361 Bateman Road, Barrington Hills.

What: The Forest Preserves of Cook County developed a long-term, comprehensive master plan for Horizon Farm and Spring Creek which they will share with the public.

You are welcome to attend the meeting to learn the details of how this plan addresses conservation and recreational issues.

Related:  “Horse lovers trying to save racetrack at Horizon Farm Forest Preserve, while bird and nature lovers question the impact,” “Forest Preserves of Cook County Fully Opens Northwest Cook County’s Horizon Farm Preserve,” “Park District hosting February 8th Cook County Forest Preserve District discussion,” “FPDCC holding Horizon Farm public meeting June 14th,” “FPDCC presents Horizon Farm update,” “Decadelong legal battle over Barrington Hills horse farm — eyed as huge forest preserve — may be nearing resolution

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IDOT

IDOT has posted its September 2023 newsletter.  Topics covered include:

  • WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO?
  • ENDANGERED SPECIES OVERVIEW
  • UPDATES ALONG IL 62 CORRIDOR
  • PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS
  • PUBLIC COMMENTS (Including Traffic Signal at Bateman Road)
  • PROJECT SCHEDULE

A copy of the newsletter can be viewed and downloaded here.

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Side 1

The Barrington Hills Police Department and Lake County Major Crash Assistance Team (MCAT) investigates a fatal crash involving three vehicles at Algonquin Road and Bateman Road in Barrington Hills Wednesday afternoon. | Photo: Nick Rusin

A 74-year-old woman died after she struck a semi-truck and then crashed head-on into a pickup truck, causing a large fuel leak, in Barrington Hills Wednesday afternoon.

The Barrington Hills Police Department and Barrington-Countryside Fire Protection responded around 12:11 p.m. Wednesday to Algonquin Road and Bateman Road in Barrington Hills for a multiple-vehicle crash.

Barrington Hills Police Department Press Information Officer William Walsh said a preliminary investigation shows a 2016 Lexus, driven by a 74-year-old woman, was traveling southbound on Bateman Road.

The Lexus entered the intersection and struck the side of a semi-truck tractor-trailer, which was traveling eastbound on Algonquin Road, Walsh said.

The impact with the semi-truck caused the Lexus to go into the westbound lane of Algonquin Road.

Side 2

The Barrington Hills Police Department and Lake County Major Crash Assistance Team (MCAT) investigates a fatal crash involving three vehicles at Algonquin Road and Bateman Road in Barrington Hills Wednesday afternoon. | Photo: Nick Rusin

The Lexus collided head-on with a 2016 Ford F-350 pickup truck, driven by a 49-year-old Crystal Lake man, Walsh said.

The impact with the semi-truck caused the Lexus to go into the westbound lane of Algonquin Road.

The Lexus collided head-on with a 2016 Ford F-350 pickup truck, driven by a 49-year-old Crystal Lake man, Walsh said.

Read more here.

Editorial note: Since IDOT has refused to install a traffic signals at the intersection of Route 62 and Bateman Road, we believe the speed limit in the areas of Bateman and Helm Roads should at least be significantly lowered.

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Sarah Glees of West Dundee

Sarah Glees of West Dundee wins a $500 scholarship from the One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest for her film “The Long-Lived Effects of the Long Meadow Parkway.” Funds for the scholarship were provided by the Environmental Law and Policy Center. (Courtesy of One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest)

By Lisa Files
One Earth Film Festival

West Dundee resident Sarah Glees will be awarded an Environmental Action Award in the One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest for her film “The Long-Lived Effects of the Long Meadow Parkway.”

The award consists of a $500 scholarship from the Environmental Law and Policy Center. Glees plans to use the funds to help pay for Elmhurst University, where she is a senior.

The Long Meadow Parkway (under construction) has a four-lane Fox River bridge crossing, which is meant to alleviate traffic in Kane County, Illinois.

Glees begins her 7-minute film “The Long-Lived Effects of the Long Meadow Parkway” with an interview with Parkway opponent Sue Harney, a Dundee Township Trustee and former Dundee Township Supervisor from 2000-17.

Harney explains that trucking companies wanted the Parkway to serve logistics hubs where items are stored or manufactured and then trucked out. Her main concern is contamination of the Fox River from heavy metals such as arsenic and chromium released from tires, hydraulic fluid, gas leaks, and the fine particulate matter from exhaust.

“It’s so long-lived and so very fine that when it gets into the water and the river, the fish have the same problem we do,” Harney said “It gets into their bodies and their gills. It’s like a slow poison.”

Glees suggests possible solutions such as electric trucks, which have no emissions, and permeable pavement, which reduces runoff and the cost of water treatment. She writes in her contest submission: “It means so much to share this story and hopefully evoke change.”

Since its inception in 2013, the One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest has grown from a local, Oak Park, Illinois, project to a highly competitive international competition garnering 403 submissions.

Countries such as Brazil, Australia and Mexico and states such as California, Georgia and Indiana will be represented among this year’s winners at the Global Awards Celebration at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 17, in person at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St., in Chicago, or online virtually anywhere in the world.

“The Long-Lived Effects of the Long Meadow Parkway” will premiere at this special event. Free tickets are available at tinyurl.com/yfc23awards.

“The secret ingredient to our success is youth. They have opinions, ideas and viewpoints about the climate emergency,” said contest Founding Director Sue Crothers. “It’s hard for people to deny what’s happening when they’re living through extreme floods, fires, and tornadoes. And the younger generations have something to say about the mess our generation has made.”

The Young Filmmakers Contest asks students from age 8 to 25 to create a 3- to 8-minute environmental film that inspires change or action. Animated or stop-motion films can be a minimum of 45 seconds long.

The deadline each year is June 25, which gives individuals and school groups the entire academic year to submit their film projects.

The call for entries for 2024 will open soon on Film Freeway at filmfreeway.com/OneEarthYoungFilmmakersContest.

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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

LMP

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.

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Removal of lead contaminated soil that’s held up the completion of the Longmeadow Parkway Bridge Corridor is finally underway.

According to a Kane County Department of Transportation news release, the project started last week and will take 12 months to complete (follow the money), weather and work production schedules permitting.

Work hours will be 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and daily temporary lane closures will be required. Flaggers or cones may be needed to control traffic as construction vehicles enter and leave the work zone, the release said.

For more information, go to:

kdot.countyofkane.org/Pages/Projects/Longmeadow-Parkway-Bridge/Longmeadow-Pkwy.aspx.

Source

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LMP To Nowhere

Kane County officials are hoping their counterparts in Cook and McHenry counties will contribute toward the cost of the Longmeadow Parkway project and help avert charging tolls at the bridge over the Fox River. Daily Herald File Photo

Funding issues have dogged the Longmeadow Parkway traffic project in northeast Kane County virtually since its inception with a $4 million federal grant in 2005. As the $135 million roadway lumbers toward a late 2024 completion, one lingering, important question remains — how to pay off $35 million in bonds Kane County used to help with the construction and support ongoing maintenance.

The ultimate fallback has long been assumed to be to make the Longmeadow Parkway Bridge, the final leg of the project, a toll bridge, the only such local toll bridge in the state. Almost no one likes that option, though, and Kane County officials have said it might be averted altogether if McHenry and Cook counties, portions of which are served by the 5.6-mile roadway, will pitch in $1 million each in recognition of the fact that their constituents will benefit substantially from the traffic-relief valve running from Huntley and Boyer roads eastward to Route 62 in Algonquin.

McHenry County Board Chair Mike Buehler acknowledged the benefits in an interview with Shaw Local Media last week. While coming well short of agreeing to Kane County’s request, Buehler did note that some estimates have found motorists from McHenry County would pay $1 million a year if the bridge ends up charging a toll.

“If we’re looking at a scenario where a toll would be eliminated, I think that would be a pretty compelling argument,” Buehler said.

The argument may not be quite as persuasive in Cook County, where just a small sliver near Barrington Hills would be most affected, but then again $1 million out of Cook’s multibillion-dollar budget is substantially less noticeable than it would be compared to the much smaller revenue picture in McHenry.

And, in both counties as well as Kane, the new road is expected to result in hundreds of millions of dollars in new business activity. This, of course, in addition to the parkway’s primary purpose of alleviating long years of bad traffic headaches in the region.

Read more here.

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The Barrington Hills Park District Board will hold a, “Park Board & Decennial Committee on Local Government Efficiency,” meeting this evening in person and via Zoom at 7:00 PM. Topics on their agenda include:

  • Horizon Farm Track Proposal
  • Local Government Efficiency Act Meeting
  • Review of Agreements with RCBH, FRVPC, FRVH

A copy of their agenda can be viewed here. Instructions for accessing the meeting remotely can be found here.

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Bridge To Nowhere

McHenry County officials might consider a request to contribute financially to Kane County’s Longmeadow Parkway project. (Rick West | Staff Photographer)

While Kane County hopes its neighbors will help foot the bill for its Longmeadow Parkway project and keep it from becoming a tollway, some officials in McHenry County are hesitant about what’s being asked.

Kane County officials have asked neighboring McHenry and Cook counties to each front $1 million for the project, which spans more than 5 miles in the northern part of Kane County and passes through Algonquin, Carpentersville and Barrington Hills.

Kane County Board Chair Corinne Pierog recently told county board members she believes a combination of state money, COVID-19 recovery money and those contributions will pay off the bond the county issued to pay for Longmeadow’s construction.

McHenry County Board member Michael Skala, a Huntley Republican who heads the county board’s finance committee, said he isn’t sure where McHenry County would find that money.

“We’d have to figure out where to get it,” Skala said. “It’s a tough sell, especially when you have 18 board members.”

McHenry County Board Chair Mike Buehler, a Crystal Lake Republican, said Monday it wouldn’t be unprecedented for the county to contribute to projects outside of its boundary, citing the nearly $46 million Randall Road construction project from a few years ago.

More here.

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