Zach Roth
The State Journal-Register
Officials with the Illinois Department of Transportation have unveiled an alternative preferred design for upgrades to a portion of the MacArthur Boulevard Corridor.
The design chosen – dubbed Alternative 3 by IDOT – includes the current two lanes of traffic between South Grand and Wabash/Stanford avenues in each direction with an 11-foot-wide center-left turn lane, five-foot-wide sidewalk on the eastern part of the road, and eight-foot-wide, two-way shared-use path on the west side of the road. It also has a buffer for traffic and a 25-inch wide curb and gutter. While the road is well within the Springfield city limits, the road’s maintenance is under IDOT’s jurisdiction.
During an open house Thursday at Franklin Middle School, IDOT Region 4 engineer Jeff Myers said the preferred alternative has less of an impact on businesses and existing infrastructure than others. For example, fewer businesses on each side of the road are affected by Alternative 3, with fewer parking spaces either reconfigured or eliminated on each side.
IDOT is currently in the engineering phase of its three-part plan to complete the project. That phase has included field surveys, collection of data on the road and mocking up plans and alternatives for the road. The agency has met with a Community Advisory Group on several occasions over the past two years to discuss how to best go about the project. Those meetings have been held in conjunction with the two open houses held to provide public input on the designs.
Myers said that the meetings and open houses have allowed IDOT to examine the feedback provided and then make a determination on what works and what doesn’t work for the project.
The involvement of the city of Springfield has been important to the project, according to Myers. He said Mayor Jim Langfelder and his administration have placed a high priority on the success of the project. Public Works Director Nate Bottom said the city is encouraged by the progress made on the project, with the preferred design fitting what the city is looking for with the upgrades.
Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin shares his fellow city employee’s enthusiasm for the project. McMenamin points out the advantages that having a safer and more diverse road will provide for the people living near that corridor.
“What I think can be the most promising feature(s) of it is increased safety, increased pedestrian-friendly (options), increase bicycle-friendly (options and) improvements on the curb cuts,” McMenamin said. “Landscaping is going to be a huge feature of the plan.”
McMenamin won’t be on the city council when construction begins and when the project is being completed. However, he feels that this project – in conjunction with prior projects such as the Hy-Vee grocery store, the Boulevard Townhomes and the demolition of the Esquire Theatre and future projects such as Town and Country Shopping Center and the Scheels Sports Park at Legacy Pointe – can have a major impact on the future of the area.
“That (Town and Country) project combined with the road improvement will be transformational for that section of MacArthur Boulevard,” McMenamin said.
Even with alternatives being suggested and engineering work continuing, nothing has been set in stone yet. The goal of Thursday’s meeting was to gather more feedback about IDOT’s preferred plan.
Some business owners were concerned about the adjustments made to parking that would go along with the project. Joe Utterback, owner of Penny Lane at the southern end of the improvement area, is worried about how many parking spaces will be left for his business when the project is officially complete.
Utterback is also worried for the safety of those using the shared-use path, in addition to opposing the usage of taxpayer dollars for the path with other places for people to bike close by. Utterback said he doesn’t have a clear idea on how IDOT can change its design in order to meet what works best for a business like Penny Lane.
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 