County Could Farm Out Snow Removal Near Municipalities

Algonquin Township salt dome.

Algonquin Township salt dome.

BGA President Andy Shaw writes in the Chicago Sun-Times Monday of suggestions made by former Cook County Commissioner (now Congressman) Mike Quigley on saving Cook County government money.

One that sounds a lot like something McHenry County Board member Mike Walkup has suggested:

“…off-loading maintenance of county highways to local governments.”

Requested at the Township Consolidation Task Force meeting was a map that would show which are

  • state
  • county roads
  • ownship roads
  • municipal streets

Some folks get a better idea of how to solve problems by looking at something like such a map.

If one looked in the southeastern part of McHenry County, where the County Transportation Department and County Board’s Transportation Committee think a multi-million salt barn is needed, one might conclude that allowing townships and municipalities plowing snow near the county roads could do the job.


Comments

County Could Farm Out Snow Removal Near Municipalities — 6 Comments

  1. Add IDOT roads to the mix, IDOT like McDOT have a long way to drive to get their jobs done.

  2. There’s an IDOT garage in Woodstock at Rt 14 & Rt 47.

    The townships do an amazing job of maintaining roads, it would be too much for the smaller, cash strapped townships that have very few employees and trucks.

  3. Mrs, IDOT could pay the TWH to maintain the sections of state Hwy in their areas, not repair or resurfacing, that the state in most cases already contracts out.

    Almost the same deal for McDOT.

    Actually in Wis the county takes on the state routes, even many of the interstates also.

    I would think if a county road is either in a City/Village and/or TWH like completely Cary Alg Rd, it would be cheaper to maintain if it was taken over by those to gov agencies.

    Maybe a slight adjustment in Property taxes would do the
    trick in those cases.

    Cuba TWH in SW Lake county contracts maintenance of Tower Lakes, Lake Barr, North Barr, and Barr Hills.

    Cuba TWH contracts I heard are always were cheaper than private contractors, and their wages are competitive.

    Prairie Grove, Oakwood Hills and a few other Villages with limited or no road crews should contract with their local TWH.

  4. Generally speaking the City/Villages do not want to take on any work not within their corp limits because they don’t benefit from the property taxes and legal liability.

    That my friends is part of the reason there are so many taxing bodies in the state, Lawyers.

    CL does maintain US14, not sure what the contract says and if there is any $$$$ exchanged, but the reason was CL was not happy with IDOT maintenance and took it over so the citizens had better services.

    Since the state problems has hit the skids, US14 normal maintenance in Cary and FRG has noticeably decreases, the IDOT route driver that plows there has way to big of a route, and even an average snow fall can’t keep up and conditions at times could be considered dangerous.

    Cary and FRG should move to take over that length of US14, but will they without a fight or some $$$$ coming their way?

  5. Rakow Rd is almost all in CL, LITH, and Alg municipal borders, why not let them handle the maint of that mess, they benefit the most from it!

  6. Nice picture of the Alg TWH salt dome, I thought it was to big when first built, even said so to the Hwy Commissioner, I was wrong for not considering who all use that facility.

    If Mike W. or Cal are suggesting McDOT add salt there so no new structure is needed, they are ignorant of the facts.

    McDOT already has salt there, as does IDOT, VOC, FRG, and Trout Valley who has no salt storage at all.

    Restocking is a problem especially when the weather is bad, and the costs of salt go up a tad, sometimes allot.

    I’m sure those big salt companies and trucking outfits aren’t taking advantage of the weather problems, na couldn’t be.

    Jack Franks Consolidation report talked of the value of gov agencies working together, making for more efficient use of our tax $$$$.

    In most cases that is what we have now, only a few Municipalities seem to not work with the other local gov agencies, CL is one of them.

    To special in their own minds perhaps.

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