Expanded light rail and express bus service are among the transit options that will be explored in a 16-month study aimed at improving congestion along the Northwest Tollway, officials announced Monday.
Consultants hired by the Northwest Municipal Conference said they will also develop plans for stations along the tollway and devise a strategy for funding the improvements by May 2003. The possibilities also include heavy rail.
Extending rail service into the northwest suburbs could cost as much as $1 billion, they said.
“These things realistically take a decade to do,” said Ron Shimizu, deputy project manager with Parsons Brinckerhoff, a national firm that will be paid $312,000 to conduct the study.
Likely locations for rapid-transit stations include Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, the intersection of the Northwest Tollway and Elmhurst Road and the Prairie Stone office park in Hoffman Estates.
Northwest suburban leaders have long favored extending the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line from its terminus at O’Hare International Airport to Schaumburg.
The Regional Transit Authority will pay $250,000 toward the study, with municipalities providing the rest of the money.
Besides Chicago, suburbs participating are Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, Elk Grove Village, Hoffman Estates, Mt. Prospect, Rolling Meadows, Rosemont and Schaumburg.
“Traffic congestion continues to build as more and more companies seek office and industrial space here,” Arlington Heights Mayor Arlene Mulder said after the presentation in Elk Grove Village.
“Everything we have is geared to getting people from the suburbs to the city. We’re trying to make suburb-to-suburb connections. … There should be alternative ways to get to work besides a car.”
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Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson said easing congestion is crucial to the future of his town’s business park.
Companies will leave unless improvements in public transportation result in fewer motorists clogging roads already handling 30 percent more than their designed capacity, he said.
“Every minute that those trucks hit a stoplight, these companies lose money,” Johnson said.
The consulting firm said the federal government likely would pay about 50 percent of the cost for improvements. The rest would have to come from state and local sources.
The new rapid-transit stations would be designed to spur development.
Johnson, Mulder and other suburban leaders relish the prospect of what the planners call “walkable” communities, although suburbanites have traditionally been averse to abandoning their cars.
“A lot of people want to be close to mass transit,” Johnson said.
“Suburbia is changing.”