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| Elgin may add bike lanes while it repaves streets | |
| Mar 24, 2008 | |
| Amanda Marrazzo | |
| Chicago Tribune | |
| Pertains to Elgin | |
| Elgin plans to add its first on-street bicycle lanes this summer as part of a road repair and repaving project south of Wing Park. Officials say the bike lanes—along a 2-mile stretch of Wing Park Boulevard and North Edison Avenue between the park and South Street—eventually could be part of a proposed citywide bikeway plan now before the City Council. The plan calls for more than 240 miles of on-street bike lanes and 48 miles of off-street trails. But officials have not decided how to pay for it, and some say it could take more than 20 years to complete the proposed network of bike lanes, trails and amenities such as bike racks, facilities for showering and changing clothes, drinking fountains and benches. "We are reading about obesity rates and how inactive our children are, and one way we can get them active is to have a nice bicycle route," said Randy Reopelle, Elgin's parks and recreation director and one of the officials involved in planning for the bikeways. "Bicycling just makes sense." The Elgin Bikeway Master Plan was drafted by the Chicago office of transportation consultants TranSystems. City Council members have expressed support and could vote Wednesday on the plan. Officials said the idea is to incorporate bike paths into future city, county and state road projects, as well as during routine street maintenance already included in the city budget. "As we come up to street repair season, we want this plan available to us," said council member David Kaptain, also executive director of Elgin's umbrella group for neighborhood associations. Other potential sources of funding are riverboat casino money or grants. The costs of each segment would vary, said Gina Trimarco, a senior planner at TranSystems. "If the path just requires striping and signage along a street, the cost would be about $400,000. But if the path required tunnels, bridges and the purchase of private property, it would cost as much as $3.3 million," she said. Wing Park Boulevard and part of North Edison are wide enough to accommodate bike lanes with the additional pavement markings, Kaptain said, but Edison between Larkin Avenue and South Street is narrow and would be a challenge. The master plan outlines proposed bike routes and sets guidelines for building the network. It proposes to connect Elgin's bikeways with Kane County's bike path at Big Timber and Coombs Roads, which would allow riders to peddle from downtown Elgin to Sugar Grove. The plan won preliminary approval this month from the council's committee of the whole, but some council members and Mayor Ed Schock expressed concerns about the city's potential liability if it becomes a "biking community." "I really encourage aggressively looking at alternatives to putting bikes on streets with cars," Schock said. "I'm just saying we should go into this with our eyes open." Schock suggested widening sidewalks to incorporate bike lanes. Supporters say the benefits far outweigh the liabilities. "I am not a lawyer, but in the end, looking at the benefit versus liability, this gets people moving," said Pamela Brookstein, the near west suburban coordinator for Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. "There is more benefit." |
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