Roads Cared for By Township Highway Commissioners

In an attempt to get people thinking about the proposal to combine townships, look at the number of miles of road each Township Road Commissioner maintains:

Miles of road in each McHenry County township for which the Road Commissioner is responsible.

Miles of road in each McHenry County township for which the Road Commissioner is responsible.


In addition, Algonquin Township Road Commissioner Bob Miller writes that he offers assistance to about 20 more miles of streets and roads which are non-dedicated to the township system.


Comments

Roads Cared for By Township Highway Commissioners — 14 Comments

  1. And does an amazing job of maintaining those roads.

    Always the first plowed, best plowed roads.

  2. Cal, a helpful comparison for purposes of deciding whether township consolidation would be prudent would be to compare the total road budget per mile served across these townships and for the county.

    Shouldn’t be too hard to throw together.

  3. Note that the number of miles is derived by counting one side of the road and then the other,

    Therefore, divide the number in half for accurate miles.

  4. I’m waiting for the proponents of consolidation to provide that information.

  5. FYI you are wrong, the miles are accurate.

    All gov agencies measure them down the center line, lane miles would mean doubling the given numbers.

    When needed, a Gov agency will list the lane miles on roads like Randall.

  6. Rawdogger, to be accurate roads need to be measured by the square foot or yard. Some of the newer or improved roads are so wide the snow plows have to make more than one pass to clean off the snow.

    Not all townships have that accurate info, neither do some of the villages, although Cary did at one time.

    Road surveys take allot of time to do and can be expensive if a engineering outfit does them, which is what Cary did 30 some years ago.

    I’m not sure if Cary ever up dated it as it was a tad of a waste of $$$$.

  7. Alg and Nunda have allot of subdivisions, some with curb,storms,and even sidewalk, which are more time consuming and expensive to maintain.

    Village and City roads tend to be in worst shape because of all the underground services that have to be dealt with when it’s time for repair.

    Some Twh roads are now in that same category.

  8. Like most argument over accurate measurement this case for example reports roads miles is listed to the third decimal.

    If we for instance compare three townships, McHenry, Door and Burton with 98, 34 and 15 road miles respectively.

    If we assume a snowplow travel at 25 miles per hour, the three set of township roads would therefore be plowed once in 4 hours, 1.5 hour and 30 minutes respectively with one plow, presumably in one direction.

    As part of the general public it is impossible for us to judge how well the township is performing and even how many men and trucks are available, when it gets to snowplowing.

    The larger question is if there is a relationship with population in the respectively township and how much organizational overhead there is, and would the McHenry County gain any cost savings by operate from a centralized unit under the Department of Transportation or the future elected Chairman office of McHenry County.

    The consolidation of two or maybe three township would based on my limited information just be marginal.

    To make any changes to current system would require a detailed cost-benefit analysis rather than guess work and politically motivated opinions.

    Maybe the McHenry County Board should assign a person or small group to the task and be given as task to collect a thorough amount of relevant data for said cost-benefit analysis and recommendation.

    To make any changes to current system would require a detailed cost-benefit analysis rather than guess work and politically motivated opinions.

    Maybe the McHenry County Board should assign a person or small group to the task to give a thorough collection of relevant data for a cost-benefit analysis.

  9. Re: “Maybe the McHenry County Board should assign a person or small group to the task to give a thorough collection of relevant data for a cost-benefit analysis.”

    We have many people still alive who have served on Township Boards and as Road Commissioners and watched the evolution of Township government.

    A suggestion would be to recruit those who do not suffer from ‘mental impairment’ to serve on such a committee.

    In addition, there may be people currently on those Township Boards who appear to be willing to look at the ‘underbelly’ of Township government.

  10. The miles quoted are correct, center-line miles, and don’t need to be “cut in half” as another commenter claims.

    However, when looking at a Township Highway District’s quoted budget and levy, it’s important to keep in mind that up to half of it doesn’t get spent by the Township Highway District at all.

    Instead, up to half of a Township Highway District’s stated budget and levy actually gets “passed through” directly to the local city or village road department.

    This means that the real “net budget” of a Township Highway District is substantially lower than indicated by its “official” (or gross) budget.

    So if you want to calculate an accurate cost per mile, be sure to use the net budget, not the gross

  11. Bill Gaines:

    You really should point out that your statement is a generality.

    Some Townships actually pass on very little of what they collect while others pass on a whole lot.

    The County actually makes the information readily available at: https://www.co.mchenry.il.us/home/showdocument?id=43073

    For example if you look up the detail for Burton Township, they collect $4,726.99 in property taxes which actually is paid to the Village of Fox Lake and $19,213.17 which is paid to the Village of Spring Grove.

    Total property tax collected by Burton Township Road and Bridge in 2014 was $163,617.73.

  12. Numbers guy:

    And you really should point out that you’ve cherry-picked example townships with a low percentage of incorporated (City and Village) roads.

    The mandated township-to-city pass-through funding formula is based on that percentage, not on the whims of elected officials (as you seem to be trying to imply)

  13. Wrong, Bill. It’s based on the total percentage of real estate assessed value located in the Township’s inc. areas vs its uninc. areas.

    Same difference though overall.

  14. Here are some historical figures for McHenry County Townships.

    Total = Road Maintenance, Equipment, Facilities, Personal Services & Benefits, & Other (there is a breakdown for those figures for Townships also).

    District Name – Levy 2008 —– Mileage 2009 – Total ——– Levy/Mileage – Total/Mileage
    ALDEN TWP —– $00,131,217 —— 036.95 —- $00,267,506 — $003,551 —– $0,007,240
    ALGONQUIN TWP – $03,671,000 —— 056.35 —- $04,392,200 — $065,146 —– $0,077,945
    BURTON TWP* — $00,148,806 —— 013.65 —- $00,103,267 — $010,902 —– $0,007,565
    CHEMUNG TWP — $00,478,600 —— 032.45 —- $00,445,518 — $014,749 —– $0,013,729
    CORAL TWP —– $00,290,000 —— 058.00 —- $00,473,450 — $005,000 —– $0,008,163
    DORR TWP —— $01,114,679 —— 034.17 —- $02,025,530 — $032,622 —– $0,059,278
    DUNHAM TWP —- $00,280,345 —— 043.17 —- $00,344,763 — $006,494 —– $0,007,986
    GRAFTON TWP — $00,692,505 —— 027.04 —- $01,727,477 — $025,610 —– $0,063,886
    GREENWOOD TWP – $01,020,704 —— 043.41 —- $01,119,437 — $023,513 —– $0,025,788
    HARTLAND TWP — $00,239,645 —— 041.30 —- $00,360,404 — $005,803 —– $0,008,726
    HEBRON TWP* — $00,230,502 —— 037.49 —- $00,275,600 — $006,148 —– $0,007,351
    MARENGO TWP** – $00,472,589 —— 036.41 —- $00,543,165 — $012,980 —– $0,014,918
    MCHENRY TWP — $03,356,886 —— 097.73 —- $03,977,663 — $034,349 —– $0,040,701
    NUNDA TWP —– $03,072,426 —— 098.24 —- $04,000,258 — $031,275 —– $0,040,719
    RICHMOND TWP — $00,452,008 —— 033.16 —- $00,565,535 — $013,631 —– $0,017,055
    RILEY TWP —– $00,223,687 —— 047.00 —- $00,269,650 — $004,759 —– $0,005,737
    SENECA TWP —- $00,246,859 —— 040.40 —- $00,395,675 — $006,110 —– $0,009,794
    Totals ——– $16,122,458 —— 776.92 —- $21,287,097 — $948,380 —– $1,252,182

    Just use these figures as a rough guideline.

    Not sure of the source.

    Not sure if the Total is 2008 or 2009.

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