The current configuration of the intersection or Virginia Street Road, Route 31 and Klasen Road.
Every time I drive by McHenry County’s only Park and Ride lot at the intersection of Route 31 and Virginia Street Road, I wonder about its justification.
Certainly there was government-owned land as the path of Virginia Street Road was moved from a closer to direct connection to Kalsen Road to one where Virginia Street Road meets Route 31 at a right angle.
The intersection of Virginia Street Road has been modified twice.
McHenry County’s Park & Ride Lot has very few vehicles on a winter Tuesday.
The second time it was being designed the Illinois Department of Transportation was not considering a light at Klasen Road until I told them Fox Trails Residents in Cary couldn’t get onto Route 31 at Algonquin Road at the top of the hill next to the cemetery.
A complaint was made at a 1992 coffee held for me in Fox Trails when I was running for State Representative the second time around.
The Virginia Street Road Park and Ride lot on March 17, 2016, at 11 AM. Two trucks, two cars.
The engineers pulled out their historical maps and decided that a light was needed.
The second time the intersection was move when Route 31 was turned into four lanes left more vacant, government-owned land south of Virginia Street Road.
At some point the idea to put a park and ride lot surfaced.
Most of the money came from the IDOT money pot.
Almost $100,000 was spent with Civilteck Engineering to supervise its construction.
The Virginia Street Park and Ride lot in June of 2015 at about 3 PM. Three vehicles.
The result is an empty parking lot, not just on weekends, but every day.
Talk keeps coming up regarding the need for a salt storage facility in the southeastern part of McHenry County.
Empty Park and Ride lot again on August 5, 2014.
Little or no consideration seems to have been given to farming out snow removal to local municipalities through which or near which county roads run, as County Board member Mike Walkup suggested before he won the GOP nomination for County Board Chairman.
A McHenry County snow plow on Ackman Road in Crystal Lake. Why couldn’t an agreement be reached with Crystal Lake to plow this road? Why does a truck have to come all the way from Hartland, northwest of Woodstock?
That’s because the County Highway Department was moved from the corner of Country Club Road and Route 47 in Woodstock to the decidedly geographically not centrally location across from the Valley Hi Nursing Home where it now sits.
Cheap land, but cheap for the reason of its location is far from the population center of McHenry County.
The Park and Ride lot was built south of Virginia Street Road.
County officials gave the public no idea where the favored site for a new salt dispensing facility was located.
Top secret. Hush, hush, don’t you know.
But McHenry County Blog ferreted out the location–the Eisenmann complex on Virginia Street Road in Crystal Lake.
Taking a major building off the Crystal Lake Grade and High School, not to mention Park District and city tax rolls…what a concept to discuss in secret.
After that fell through, specifications for the location for a new salt barn were so restrictive, I figured a favored land owner had already been selected.
Take a read of the County Transportation’s press release:
“site must have direct access to either a State Route or County Highway and must be located south of Illinois Route 176 and east of Illinois Route 47.”
“Why so restrictive?” I asked myself.
Why would a site on Main Street in Crystal Lake be unacceptable?
Or a site on a township road like Pingree Road?
July 8, 2014, saw three people using the Park and Ride lot.
In any event, my conspiratorial view of McHenry County government was proven wrong when no site was put forward.
No pressure this past year probably because snowfall was so low, but the issue will come up again.
And, unless a newly-elected County Board Chairman named Mike Walkup can figure out how to dissuade the Transportation Department and Committee to take another path to solve the problem, McDOT may be again looking for a location to build a new salt barn.
If that’s the case, one of the possible places should be all or part of the largely unused Park and Ride lot pictured above.
Needless to say, this is not the first time this suggestion has been made.
MCDOT is run by the County Engineer, the Operating Engineers and businesses associated with the highway industry.
Anna May Miller has been their ‘Stooge’ (my opinion) for most of these projects.
It will be interesting to see who the new Board installs as the Chairman of the MCDOT.
Will not know what the complete pool of possible candidates is until the November election results are in but it would be interesting to see someone like Andrew Gasser as Chairman of the MCDOT committee.
However, I can already see the lobbying for that position by Kearns and Kopsell.
Just wondering, do Board rules permit the Chairperson to also be a Committee Chairman if he / she is also an elected Board member?
All committees at the County are run by staff, elected officials sprinkle ‘holy water’ on most of what staff comes up with.
Just read the minutes of any committee meeting.
The philosophy of staff of most of the staff at McHenry County is that they will be there long after the elected official is gone.
Great example of ‘investigative journalism’.
It is inefficient to drive all that way to maintain these roads by county staff.
Cary-Alg Rd, should be maintained by Cary and Alg Twh, Rakow Rd by CL, LITH, and Alg.
I sure if one look at the county rd map other roads could be better and cheaper maintained by either township of municipal staff contracted or just given as their’s to have.
Actually some of the State Rds should be maintained by municipalities, Twh, or even county crews like Wisconsin does.
US14 is already done by CL, Cary and FRG should pick up the rest in the SE part of the county.
I believe the Wis model is cheaper to run than IL which is not a surprise really.
Small increases in roads could be dealt with without increases in Twh of Municipal salt storage.
Mike W. and the county board should look at the whole before spending any $$$$ on new buildings.
Cal I just drove by there, 2 cars.
I heard there could be a problem with water table at that sight.
A salt dome would take extra $$$$ to build there if so.
Health depth may kill the project.
I have to admit I’m genuinely ignorant of the purpose of this project and I’d appreciate it if someone would explain it to me.
Why do people park there?
Does a bus come by and take them somewhere?
Share a ride, be green Steve.
Wrong location or people just don’t know about it.
US12 at the border with Wis they have one also.
For years it was hardly used, but last time I went by the parking lot was semi full.
Steve there is a RTA bus that runs from Metra station in CL down Main to Rakow then Randall to Elgin.
I’ve never seen any riders on that full sized bus.
Not known or just not a good route?
Had Cal not been hammering this point on this blog – none of us would have ever known about it.
It’s one of he best keep secrets in McHenry County, Illinois!
That plus the fact that there is no call for something as useless as a parking lot in the middle of nowhere, probably explains why it is always empty.
Right Cindy.
I saw it plenty of times and wondered what the heck that was?
“Road construction projects are the new manilla envelope full of cash passed under the table.”
Indeed!
This was a useless project and is a useless site that no one uses.
But the county or townships buddies got their contract for it, didn’t they.
Let’s see what happens and how much money is saved (or just -not spent) when we get ALL the MILLERS out of office/and off the govt. payroll!!
That big bus was marked Pace just to correct what I said before, and it was empty again early this afternoon CL ave at Main.
Y’all may want to go back in time and check to see who was promoting the Park and Ride concept for McHenry County:
http://mchenrycountyblog.com/2012/07/13/park-and-ride-lot-in-the-future-of-route-31-virginia-street-road-intersection/
Don’t you mean “a new County Board Chairman named Jack Franks?”
Connect the dots, all it says is “McHenry County Transportation Committee”
Is that what you mean?
Who was on that then, Chirikos, Yensen, Miller, ?
C?
They meant that Cal was a big promoter because he mentioned it here.
Read his article.