Title
143rd Street, Jurisdictional Transfer from Will-Cook Road to Wolf Road - Discussion
History
The Village, its engineering staff, and its engineering consultants have been working to secure construction funding for the widening/improvements of the 143rd Street project for over a decade. The 143rd Street project includes widening and improving the roadway from Southwest Highway to Will-Cook Road from two-lanes (one lane each direction) to five-lanes (two lanes each direction with a center turn lane). The Village has received some funds for engineering studies, but has not received any federal or state funds for construction. The following is a list of efforts that the staff has previously initiated to acquire construction funds:
-Federal TIGER Grants, now known as BUILD grant. The staff will again apply for this grant later this year when the applications open.
-Surface Transportation Program (STP) funds, federal transportation funds administered by Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and managed by Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) and Southwest Conference of Mayors (SCM)
-Multiple requests over several years by staff to IDOT to include our project in their Multi-Year Program (MYP). The MYP is a five-year program which is used by IDOT to identify transportation projects throughout the state. Inclusion in the MYP guarantees the availability of construction funds by IDOT. Staff proactively reached out to IDOT last year in an attempt to get the 143rd Street project included in the 2020-2025 MYP, but IDOT indicated that they are unable to include the Village’s project in the current program.
Earlier this year, staff learned that IDOT has a program where they give a higher priority for construction funding if a municipality is willing to take ownership of an unmarked section of a state highway. For the 143rd Street project, the roadway section between Will-Cook Road and Wolf Road is an unmarked state highway (refer to the attached ma...
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