Fixing the roads, expanding the Pace bus fleet and extending the Chicago Transportation Authority’s Blue Line service to Yorktown are three items on a wish list of traffic and congestion solutions compiled by a policy committee.

Not that the first two options won’t take a lot of money, reports the Cook-DuPage Corridor Study, conducted by the Policy Committee for the Regional Transportation Authority, but they are categorized as the more doable, near-term solutions to traffic congestion which is choking suburban roads and adversely affecting business.

The third, extension of the Blue Line to the fast-growing Yorktown area in Lombard, would require massive capital expenditures and would certainly change transportation to and from the Loop and points west to the heart of DuPage County.

Improvements in traffic are critical to continued success in the future, business executives said. Near-term solutions include Strategic Roadway Improvements (SRIs).

SRIs are defined as minor capital improvements (less than $100 million each) that will significantly enhance connectivity and relieve traffic bottlenecks for the existing roadway network. An example includes widening 22nd Street to three lanes in each direction between Midwest Road and Ill. Rt. 83 to relieve traffic congestion in the Oak Brook area.

The widening of 22nd has been a priority for some time and is badly needed for better access for customers and employees, according to Tracy Mulqueen, president and CEO of the Greater Oak Brook Chamber of Commerce. She noted that the funds had already been requested.

On the other hand, the extension of the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line is in a very early stage of planning, she noted.

“That doesn’t mean we would not like to have that method of transportation to further relieve congestion of people in and out of the area,” Mulqueen said. “Relieving congestion is critical for our businesses.”

The importance of fixing roads first was also stressed by Dan Wagner, vice president of government relations for the Inland Real Estate Group, Inc., based in Oak Brook. Officials in Springfield must come up with the state funds to match federal government money for roads, he said.

“We have been a donor state since we have been putting more money in than we have been getting back,” he said. “That needs to change.”

All of the transportation improvements hinge on the receipt of state and federal government money. That was the subject of a recent transportation summit in Naperville hosted by the Transportation for Illinois Coalition and Choose DuPage, the public/private economic development partnership formerly called DuPage Biz.

One source of state government funding could be increasing fees such as those for driver’s licenses. Laura Crawford, executive director of the Downers Grove Area Chamber of Commerce, said fees are another way of getting money from people as taxes do.

She noted that Robert Schillerstrom, chairman of the DuPage County Board and a member of the state organization Illinois Works, is confident that funds can be obtained without raising the state income tax or the state sales tax.

The least expensive improvements to reduce traffic congestion, in addition to widening 22nd Street, could include:

• Eola Road—extend through Fermilab property to Ill. Rt. 38;
• Ill. Rt. 59—widen to three lanes in each direction;
• Elgin O’Hare Expressway—extend one interchange west to County Farm Road;
• Fullerton Avenue/Grand Avenue—extend west to Main Street in Glen Ellyn and east to Grand Avenue.;
• Ill. Rt. 83 (Kingery Highway)—intersection improvement at Riverside Drive; widen to three lanes in each direction;
• Franklin Avenue—improve interchange with Mannheim Road;
• Wolf Road—extend over Union Pacific Railroad Proviso Yard;
• 25th Avenue—widen to two lanes in each direction
• I-290 major rehabilitation—Mannheim Road to Cicero Avenue
• Central Avenue—extend over BNSF Cicero Yard.

In anticipation of some sort of government funding for more expensive projects, the policy committee for the Study plans to make specific choices from the following list of preliminary recommendations for what is called a Main Line System of approximately 112 to 132 linear miles:

• Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line extension to Yorktown;
• I-290 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT);
• I-290 High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes;
• I-355 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT);
• Mid-City Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Lawrence Ave. to I-94 at 87th Street;
• DuPage J Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) I-290/Thorndale Avenue/Ill. Rt. 83/I-88/Diehl Road/Ill.-Ill. 83-I-88-Diehl-Il. Rt. 59;
• Inner Circumferential Rail Line (from Midway to O’Hare);
• Elgin-O’Hare Expressway East Extension to O’Hare.

The Study has reached an important milestone, according to Paul Fichtner, chairman of the policy committee for the Cook-DuPage Corridor Study and a member of the DuPage County Board.

The Committee unanimously agreed on a future transportation system to serve the more than 1 million residents and 750,000 employees of the Corridor.

“We expect to continue working with the Regional Transportation Authority as they begin the next phase, System Alternatives Analysis,” Fichtner said.

In that phase, which will be completed later in 2008, the recommended projects will be further refined and evaluated to narrow the options and determine the best of them. The Committee will then recommend a preferred transportation scenario to pursue for eventual construction.

“This innovative planning process involving regional and local consensus speaks to the uniqueness of the area and the complexity of the travel challenges facing the Corridor,” Fichtner said.

“Whether considering extending the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line to Lombard or possibly enhancing parts of the Eisenhower Expressway or some combination of these ideas, we had to think ‘outside the box’ to conceive options that took into consideration the existing transportation system, yet inspired new choices that would accommodate transportation needs far into the future.”

However, at this stage of the study, a key is to figure out which alternatives should be selected and can be funded, said Larry Christmas, director of the Oak Park Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The time and cost of the study alternatives are so large that the choices need to be narrowed down, according to Christmas, who was executive director of the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission, an agency which no longer exists.

Making choices can be difficult because they involve trying to predict how people will behave, he said, citing the example of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes for vehicles with two or more occupants.