More than two years have lapsed since the city opened negotiations with the Illinois Department of Transportation over diagonal parking on State Street, and no agreement has been reached.
But officials are hopeful that a council-approved resolution listing the acceptable changes on the city’s main thoroughfare will receive a similar endorsement from the state agency by the end of October.
“We’re anxious to get this thing signed and delivered,” said Ald. Merritt King, chairman of a special council/business community that negotiated with IDOT. “We’ve gone over it again and again, and this is what we’ll agree to.”
Geneva Mayor William Ottilie said he planned to speak with IDOT regional engineer Duane Carlson in hopes of the two governments signing a formal agreement before the Nov. 8 general election.
“For one thing, what if there is a new administration after November and we’re back to square one?” said Ottilie.
The controversy over State Street, or Illinois Highway 38, began in 1992, when IDOT said it wanted to eliminate diagonal parking when it resurfaces the road due to what it perceived as a high accident rate from motorist backing out their vehicle onto a major four-lane thoroughfare.
But city officials and downtown business leaders said if diagonal spaces were replaced with parallel parking, too many spaces would be lost and potential customers would just avoid the area in favor of regional malls where parking is more convenient.
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In the document sent to IDOT last week, the city agreed to reduce the angle of the diagonal spaces to 42 degrees from the current 45. The state had wanted a reduction to 38 degrees.
The city has also agreed to eliminate diagonal spaces between 4th and 7th Streets, and to contribute $100,000 toward resurfacing the road between 1st and 4th Streets if IDOT agrees to spend a similar amount on a future local project to be determined later.
The city has also agreed to reduce the number of accidents on State Street downtown by 15 percent the first year after the resurfacing project and by 25 percent the second year.