The ongoing reconstruction of Franklin Avenue is just one example of grant-funded improvements over the past decade in the village of Franklin Park.
The 1.8-mile-long Franklin Avenue project, valued at $34.96 million, is being paid for with $2 million in local tax increment financing dollars and grant money totaling just under $33 million, a figure that has changed slightly from previous reporting.
In addition to the Franklin Avenue reconstruction, since 2009 the village has completed some 37 other projects that were funded with $70.4 million in grants. Some of those included work on other streets, water mains, trails and bicycle paths.
“All these projects are important,” Franklin Park Village President Barrett Pedersen said. ” …I’m going out on a limb and saying that Franklin Park has received more grant money per capita than any other municipality in the State of Illinois.”
Franklin Park has an average reported population of 18,400 between 2010 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census.
The sources of many of the grants, such as those for the Franklin Avenue reconstruction, include the Illinois Department of Transportation, the federal Surface Transportation Program, Cook County, the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program and others.
Franklin Park was the recipient of $1.2 million in funding from President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), money that Village Comptroller David Gonzalez said will be spent on “water main replacement in certain areas of Franklin Park. ARPA funds also are expected to be used on other related projects that will help reduce water loss due to aging infrastructure.”
The Franklin Avenue construction work is related to the larger O’Hare Western Bypass regional project. The Franklin Avenue project eventually will add both on and off ramps to interstate 294 and the new I-490.
“This will be a complete reconstruction of everything related to that roadway,” Franklin Park Community Development Director John Schneider said. “It will be a new road that’s much wider for trucks, with new curbs, sewers, water lines, sidewalks and a bike trail.”
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Franklin Park Village Engineer Thomas McCabe described the new road as “concrete with an asphalt overlay. Normal villages have about 2% trucks on their roads. We did a study and found that we have 12% trucks.”
The village already has completed the first phase of the project, which involved the installation of box culverts for road drainage and relocation of the massive pillars that support I-294 above Franklin Avenue.
When the new I-490 is built, by 2025, it will meet Franklin Avenue at a “diverging diamond” intersection, the new road configuration that the Federal Highway Administration says is safer and more efficient than the more common cloverleaf.
Several other related Franklin Park road improvements also will be completed in the near future, as baiduhai/Pioneer Press previously reported. These include a Mannheim Road turn lane and the widening of Belmont Avenue and Williams Street.
