It’s officially the beginning of the end of Huntley’s love/hate relationship with the Kreutzer Road’s “curve.”
According to a village press release, the purpose of the January 20 open house was to “present the transportation needs, a description of the proposed improvements, and solicit input from the public.”
The release was an open invitation for “all persons interested in the project” to attend the open house meeting “concerning the Phase 1 study for the improvement of Kreutzer Road.”
The approximately 1.5-mile section of Kreutzer Road from the traffic signal at the north entrance to Walmart to Haligus Road will be widened to three 12-foot traffic lanes plus a proposed 16-foot-wide multi-use path for pedestrian and bike use. The middle traffic lane will be for turns into the businesses and streets along that stretch of Kreutzer.
Phase 1 of the project is projected to conclude in the next 90 days.
Phase 2, projected at 18 to 24 months, includes the finalization of the design, the preparation of contract plans, agency approvals, property acquisition and the advertisement for construction bids.
Phase 3, the actual construction, is anticipated to take one year.
Village Trustee Harry Leopold said, “it will be done barring any unexpected findings.” He continued, “the design engineering is done, approved and funded.”
Leopold added, “it will go to bid early this year and work should begin yet in 2022. The primary benefits will be straitening and leveling the roadway and should eliminate the many accidents there.”
Village Trustee Ronda Goldman added, “There aren’t many certainties in life, but I am hopeful that our Kreutzer Road alignment project will stay within budget and be completed by 2025.”
Goldman continued, “we have a Fiscal Year 2022 Street Improvement and Road and Bridges budget of $1,273,933. I am cautiously optimistic that we will not exceed that dollar amount.”
She added, “some dollars did come to us from the Rebuild Illinois Fund which has helped to reduce our monetary end of the project.”
When asked, Jarred Cebulski of Patrick Engineering of Lisle, the village’s engineering consultants, commented that “the project should be finished in Fiscal Year 2025.”
Cebulski added that the overall cost of the project is expected to be in the “$10 to $12 million range.” That estimate includes land acquisition.
Tim Farrell, Huntley’s Director of Public Works, said that “The preliminary phase I engineers estimated construction cost is $7,863,000. Design and Construction Engineering is estimated at approximately $1,423,000. There is anticipated to be an indeterminate amount of land acquisition cost as well.”
“The Rebuild Illinois fund is contributing $1,759,107 to the project” added Farrell.
“We have programmed $1.5 Million from the Federal Surface Transportation Program (STP)” stated Farrell. “We will solicit additional grant funding, but the sources and potential amounts are not yet determined” he added.
In response to a question on traffic interruption, Farrell replied, “It is anticipated that Kreutzer Road will not be closed during construction. Instead, it is anticipated that traffic will be staged during the construction project.”
