Last night was the second annual Lake County Transportation Association Transportation Summit, this year many more elected people attended and many more audience members were there as well. There were roughly 60 elected officials voting. The voting was boiled down to 4 buckets and 2 advisory votes. Follow this link for the ballot. I would also caution you that the project ranking does not prohibit choices that finish lower then first to receive funding; in fact in some cases all projects can receive funding. What we are doing is telling our state representatives what our priorities are in ranking order. I was impressed last year many people had no real concerted idea about what was going on, this year everyone was fully dialed in!
Bucket One-- Projects Ready for Preliminary Engineering
There were 12 projects in this bucket, those that would receive a realistic chance of receiving funding were those that finished in the top six. My vote was for (FW) which was for the Route 60, stretching from Fairfield to 176. This project easily finished in the top 6, although not first, HG did which is Lake Cook to Route 45. I would put the results here, but they divided the projects into 2 brackets and then took the top 10 and re-voted, I was not fast enough with my pen to get all the percentages.
Bucket Two—Projects Ready for Design Engineering
There were only 4 projects ready for this phase the results were easier to capture. My vote was for GE.
33% GF—US 45 from 60 to 21
26% GE—IL60/83 South of 176 to the EJ&E Railroad
25% GC—IL 131 Wisconsin State Line to Sunset Ave
16% GD—Milburn Bypass
Bucket Three—Projects Ready for Construction
This was the good one we had 5 candidates, my vote was for GL, my rationale was this areas traffic flow will improve traffic downstream on 45 and 60
73% GN—US 21 South of IL Route 120 to IL Route 137
12% GL—US 45 Washington to 120
8% GG—IL 83 Wisconsin state line to Petitie Lake Road
3% GJ—US 45 132 to Rollins Road
3% GK US 45 Rollins to Washington
Bucket Four—Regional Corridor Projects
Last year this was the 120 Corridor bypass vote, this year it was US 41 from Delany Road to Lake Cook. My vote was strongly agree.
45%--Strongly Agree
31%--Agree
11%--Neutral
5%--Disagree
8%--Strongly Disagree
Advisory Ballot-- Enhanced Public Transit Service
The next things on the ballot were both advisory votes the first was for Enhanced Public Transit Service. All of these things are quite needed, the one I supported the highest was reverse commuting. The five items on the ballot that we talked about were as follows. The voting moved so quickly that I could not make heads or tails out of my notes this morning.
1. Comprehensive Para-transit
2. Connectivity Rail-Bus/Multi Modal Hubs
3. Express Service Rail-Bus
4. Rail Extensions
5. Reverse Commute.
Advisory Ballot—Route 53
The last advisory was the level of support for Route 53. I voted for strongly agree, considering that we had 60 people voting in the room and the mayors and the township supervisors, and county board members who are “traditionally” anti-53 there were 12 anti 53 votes and 42 pro votes. Overall I was quite pleased with the way this vote went, obviously I would have preferred 100% unanimity, but a consensus of nearly 70% has emerged in my mind.
61%--Strongly Agree
8%--Agree
3%--Neutral
6%--Disagree
21%--Strongly Disagree
Two caveats were added before the vote on 53, which were 53 will not be pursues and the expense of improvements to existing arterials, and 53 will only be pursued if other funding (i.e. toll way privatization) becomes available.
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