Here’s what was included in the Environmental Defenders of McHenry County’s most recent email:
Friends of the Fox River Action Alert – Comments needed by Jan 9
I am contacting you regarding a very time-sensitive matter. You have a real opportunity to protect and defend the river by sending your letter this week.
The Army Corps of Engineers and Illinois Environmental Protection Agency are requesting public comments on the proposed Longmeadow Parkway Toll Bridge bythis Saturday, January 9, 2016.
The bridge for Longmeadow Parkway.
The Friends of the Fox River is asking that the Army Corps of Engineers and Illinois Environmental Protection Agency deny their respective permits at this time, because this project no longer is able to meet its “purpose and need” (use these terms).
If not that action, then we request a new Environmental Impact Statement, and the opportunity for a public hearing to demonstrate the many concerns with the application.
Our organization does not support this project because of its certain impacts upon water quality, natural resources (refer to links for more complete explanation), and outdoor recreation opportunities.
The riverine area has been deemed some of the highest quality habitat in the county.
Inaccurate predictions of traffic congestion, population growth, and economic development are adequate evidence that this project no longer meets its purpose and need.
It lacks local support, adequate funding, and may also be violating several legal factors.
This won’t take long, and is a very important action.
The agencies take our comments seriously, and previous comments have already impacted the development of this project. Here are links to tools so that you can submit your letter as soon as possible – NOTE: letters that are exactly the same will be counted as one letter, please revise a sample letter to make it your own.http://www.stoplongmeadow.com/
- Impact Assessment (link)
- Talking Points (link)
- Sample letters (link)
- Friends of the Fox River letter (link)
- Army Corps of Engineers Public Comment From G. Swick (link)
There are only two main requirements for your letter, include:
1) Regarding the Longmeadow Parkway, COE#2013-00839, IEPA
log#C-0396-14.
2) Your name and address.
Rarely are we able to make this important of an impact upon the health of our river. Let’s make it together!
Thank you for taking action to protect the Fox River,
Gary Swick
President, Friends of the Fox River
= = = = =
I continue to be in a state of disbelief that local village and county officials would try to inflict another tollway on area residents.
Assuming there is a need, the bridge should be free to motorists.
Because, all progress is bad.
Using the “Keystone Pipe Line Model” Obfuscate and delay permits.
Meanwhile costs go up, progress delayed, and local/regional economies lag.
Balance is never considered, progress with reasonable environmental considerations, everyone wins.
There is nothing free, isn’t that the republican philosophy?
LMP will feed into Algonquin road in Barrington Hills which is already a bottle neck.
All the LMP will do is increase the amount of traffic onto this already overburdened road adding to total commuter time and misery index.
What LMP planners failed to do is design a regional highway plan which LMP is part of incorporating Cook County roadways where almost all of this traffic will be headed or coming from.
LMP supporters will say traffic through Kane/McHenry County from West to East (vice versa) will move faster which will likely be true but it will not reduce travel time and misery index for majority commuters using it given the design of Algonquin road where LMP will empty into.
The LMP as presently configured is an expensive boondoggle where only a few commuters will pay tolls to drive!
**Assuming there is a need, the bridge should be free to motorists.**
Lets assume there is a need, for sake of argument.
Cal, how, exactly, do you think it should be paid for?
You think taxes are too high.
You, on this blog and elsewhere, largely oppose any increase in government spending.
Yet you say if there is a need, this road/bridge should be free?
So, again, how exactly should it be paid for?
State funds, the same way the new bridge over the Mississippi between the Metro East area and St. Louis.
Missouri, by the way, wanted to make it a toll bridge, but Blagojevich rejected that proposal.
We have all the toll highways, which ought to be freeways…and could have been, if the plan I advanced in my 2002 campaign for Governor as a Libertarian had been followed.
It seems to me that it was time for some of our Southern Illinois citizens to bear the burden…in addition to paying Motor Fuel Taxes.
A bridge should of been built in the 70s right through Camp Alg to Hagers Bend, with a limited access road leading all the way to 62 at 25.
Both the 14(Cary) and 62(Alg) bridges would off seen less traffic, and the impact on Barr Hills would of been only a little more nose.
The Northeast Corner of Kane County Tollway to connect Huntley Road to Algonquin Road by way of Longmeadow Parkway, past Route 31, through the Brunner Forest Preserve, over the Fox River, along Bolz Road, past Route 25 to Route 62.
You have to wonder the viability of a tollway that doesn’t connect to other tollways.
Can you imagine not being familiar with the area, driving, all the sudden you come across a toll, I guess if you don’t have I-Pass you would just send the toll some money or get a ticket.
The Longmeadow Parkway flyover video has almost as many bicycles as cars, not very realistic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RHF7biwi9U&feature=youtu.be
Here’s the Kane County Department of Transportation website for the Longmeadow Parkway Bridge Corridor
http://www.co.kane.il.us/dot/foxBridges/longmeadowPkwy.aspx
Route 62 should have been widened to 4 lanes as many roads in Lake County a long time ago.
The Illinois Tollway is turning the Elgin-O’Hare Expressway into the I-390 Tollway in northern DuPage County as it borders with Cook County, extending it east to wrap around O’Hare by extending legs north to I-90 & south to I-294.
To the west I-390 will still end at Lake Street in Hanover Park; connecting it with the Route 20 expressway in Elgin is still a long way off.
Seems like rather than reign in construction costs or hike taxes the answer here is to make the road a toll.
Nob, I will take the “nose” over “noise” any day!
But whose nose are we talking about?
Of course, a decade or so before, some thought such a bridge should have been built starting about where the Piggly Wiggly now is crossing the river where the slope was much milder at the marina.
This was by far the cheapest route.
That caused all sorts of turmoil within the Village of Algonquin, resulting in the election of Dana Givot to the County Board.
Thereafter, village officials decided it would be better to cross the river at Haeger’s Bend, a much, much more costly location, but lowering the political fallout in Algonquin.
Little did that generation of village officials know that the new location would spawn John Schmitt’s entry into the political arena.
He is, now, of course, Village President.
Sorry Dave, my mother a teacher gave up on my spelling education.
Would you be against a bridge there?
Expensive granted, but would help most of the people going south east.
Do any of the supporters of this project have the reference URL that has the Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA).
A true CBA will have verifiable quantitative information.
Lacking such an instrument allows many incorrect decisions to occur…
Other proposals requiring a CBA have revealed themselves as a benefit to “special interests” in contrast to the general public …an example:
**State funds, the same way the new bridge over the Mississippi between the Metro East area and St. Louis.**
So state funds, and lower taxes.
Got it.
Sigh…
While the 31 bypass was expensive, it did help traffic movement in that area, noticeably, not completely.
A bridge at Hagers Bend would also, but if 25 or 62 in Cook Co aren’t more on the lines of limited, well!
Ideally, and great cost, a north south limited access route on the east side of the county, maybe the 47 corridor for the western part of the county, and some east west limited access would help growth the county.
At what cost, and since residential hardly pays the associated maintenance bills, what for if it isn’t manufacturing growth?
Farms are good things, houses not so much.
Motor Fuel Taxes are collected every day.
The question is where to put the money.
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) Go to 2040 Plan would contain any big projects.
CMAP is the regional planning organization for Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties.
http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/about/2040
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CMAP has a construction planning website.
http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/mobility/strategic-investment/construction-planning
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