More Bike Paths in the Future for Lakewood, $1.4 Million Grant for Lakewood Road Repaving and Paths

Erin Smith

This in a continuation of the the winter newsletter from Lakewood Village President Erin Smith.

Bicycle Path for Lakewood Road and Lake Avenue

Our residents have consistently identified the construction of bicycle paths along major arterial streets as a priority for our community.

This is a significant financial challenge, because the cost to retrofit an existing roadway with bicycle paths is much higher than to build them simultaneously.

Staff was successful in obtaining a nearly $425,000 grant to build the path along Huntley Road, and it has been very well received by residents.

Lakewood Road runs north-south through the village.

After having three grant requests for a Lakewood Road bicycle path rejected by several agencies, I am very pleased to report that staff has successfully secured a grant in an amount of approximately $1.4M that will pay for the repaving of Lakewood Road from Haligus Road to Ackman Road, along with the installation of bicycle paths (similar to those installed along Huntley Road) along the roadway.

Bike paths like this are on both sides of Huntley Road.  In the future, similar paths will be built on Lake Avenue from Huntley Road to the Crystal Lake-Lakewood Village limits, plus on both sides of Lakewood Road.

In addition, staff secured an additional grant in an amount of approximately $400,000 to pay for repaving of Lake Avenue from Huntley Road to our western boundary at Village Hall, along with the installation of bicycle paths.

This new path will connect to the recently completed Huntley Road bicycle path.

In total, staff obtained approximately in $1.8M in grant funds that will both repave existing roads and install bicycle paths along major arterial streets. Construction cannot begin until 2016, but the engineering work will be budgeted in the upcoming fiscal year. This is a significant achievement for a small community with an annual roadway budget of approximately $250,000.

More tomorrow.


Comments

More Bike Paths in the Future for Lakewood, $1.4 Million Grant for Lakewood Road Repaving and Paths — 7 Comments

  1. What a joke!

    How to waste more of the taxpayer’s hard earned money.

    How stupid are we?

  2. I enjoy bicycling but putting a bicycle near an auto is a dangerous proposition.

    If the auto and bicycle collide, the bicycle always loses.

    Sticking to the off road bike paths such as rails to trails is much safer.

    To me, installing a bike path that’s attached to a roadway and not separated by a curb and a grass parkway is dangerous for kids or anyone since a car can easily veer off the road and hit the bicyclist. And even if there is a curb, but no parkway, the kid can fall off the bike immediately onto the road.

    Granted the bike path shown in the picture above is safer than no bike path, but far from a good solution.

    Plus in these economic times it’s hard to justify any bike paths.

    What is the source of the grant money?

    State and Federal is in dire financial condition, why are they spending money on bike paths.

  3. Your right Mark plus I bet the ongoing maintenance of a bike path is not covered by grants.

    Why did these cities, Crystal Lake and Woodstock come to mind, even take Federal money to improve the towns?

    Installing fancy brickwork, planters and islands alone in Woodstock square took away precious parking spaces.

    Now who will upkeep the weed and water the plant material.

    Who’s dream was that?

  4. $1.8 mil to repave all those roads, and add bike lanes. Judging from the comments above, no one noticed that.

    As a resident of Woodstock since 1983, the new work on the square hasn’t affected my ability to park on the Square a bit. In fact, if you had lived in Woodstock as long as I have, you would know that those areas that were developed were not parking spaces to begin with. At least when I ate at Vierig’s(sp.?) as a child, they weren’t parking spots. Perhaps an anonymous coward can correct me.

    And who does the upkeep? The same people who were picking up garbage on the Square today. City workers.

    As to the cost of the Square improvements? Well, my property taxes went down 5% this year.

  5. Agenda 21? Really- what’s next; black helicopters spying on your home all hours of the day and night, Cindy?

    You do the Grand Old Party proud.

    And what part of ‘non-binding resolution’ do you fail to comprehend?

  6. In adding bike lanes to both sides of the road, will the property lines of the residences along Lakewood be invaded?

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