A Will County panel voted 5-2 Tuesday to recommend the county board halt a planned widening of 143rd Street in Homer Glen after some residents and elected officials objected, fearing it would increase congestion, noise and truck traffic.
The full county board is expected to vote on the recommendation at its Feb. 15 meeting.
Residents along with Homer Glen and Homer Township officials have objected to the project, which would increase a 3-mile segment of 143rd Street from State Street/Lemont Road to Bell Road to five lanes. The street is now one lane in each direction.
But mayors of 15 southwest suburban communities, mostly in Cook County, urged the Will County Board’s Transportation Committee to continue with a planned widening, citing its importance to the region.
Palos Hills Mayor Gerald Bennett, president of the Southwest Conference of Mayors, offered support on behalf of both his city and the mayoral conference, as did Bedford Park Mayor David Brady, chairman of the conference’s transportation committee.
The regional transportation corridor between Interstates 355 and 294 (via Cicero Avenue) connects several communities, will improve safety and accessibility and promote economic development in Will County and southwest Cook County, letters from the mayors said.
Homer Glen and Homer Township officials object to plans for widening 143rd Street. (Michelle Mullins/Daily Southtown)
Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau said the overall 143rd Street regional project is supported by the Illinois Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, the Will County Government League, Metra, U.S. Sens. Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and numerous state and federal elected officials.
The county has already invested $6.2 million in the project, and it has received a $7 million federal grant, Pekau said.
“Stopping this project is fiscal malfeasance,” Pekau said. “I rarely see a project that benefits a few hundred thousand people and has this much bipartisan support throughout a region, especially in this day in age.”
Homer Glen Trustees Sue Steilen and Dan Fialko said the Will County Board must think of its residents and not be beholden to Cook County.
“You are having the big guns coming out to improve access to Cook County,” Steilen said.
County board Chair Judy Ogalla, a Republican from Monee, said officials received numerous emails and heard from residents who have shown up en masse at meetings to protest the project. More than 200 people attended a town hall meeting in Homer Glen last month, she said.
“We have to listen to the people,” Ogalla said.
Board member Elnalyn Costa, a Democrat from Bolingbrook, said though it is a difficult decision, she is looking out for the county as a whole. She said there has been undivided support in the past decade from the county board, including those who represented Homer Glen, such as Republican Leader Steve Balich and former Republican Minority Leader Mike Fricilone.
“Their purpose was to set vision for the future, vision that in 2009 went all the way out to 2040,” Costa said. “The studies that have been conducted by our engineers, by the professionals and the data we have today says that traffic is going to continue to increase in this community, in Homer Glen and across the county. I think regardless of the desired preservation for the character and nature of what 143rd represents to the people, we’re going to continue to see an increase in traffic up to 22,000 vehicles (per day) in 2040.”
Will County began preliminary engineering to widen and reconstruct 143rd Street back in 2009, and public hearings were held in 2014, 2018 and 2019.
County officials have been negotiating with landowners for easements for 116 properties. No homes would be taken or torn down in the process, said Jeff Ronaldson, the county’s transportation director. If the county would reduce the scope of the project and make it three lanes instead of five, a similar number of rights of way would have to be acquired due to detention issues, he said.
“I don’t blame previous county boards for voting the way they did,” said Homer Glen Mayor Christina Neitzke-Troike. “That’s what our previous mayors wanted with the understanding that we were going to have massive growth. But we are not growing. We are not booming. This project would take away the beauty of what Homer Glen is about.”
Neitzke-Troike said she has had several conversations with mayors who have urged her to think of the road’s regional significance.
“No. I’m the mayor of Homer Glen,” she said. “You want people to get through Homer Glen to get to your town faster. My residents don’t need you taking up portions of their land. Our town is not a pass through.”
Drivers can use 159th Street, which also has an interchange for I-355, and was recently improved by IDOT, Neitzke-Troike said. But the rural nature of 143rd Street should remain, she said.
Ogalla said sometimes the hardest thing for an elected official to do is to reevaluate what has been done in the past.
“One thing that we need to do is determine what do we want Will County to be in the future,” Ogalla said. “Do we want every single inch of property to be paved over, put a house on, put a solar energy plant on … or do we want to do something different?”
Michelle Mulllins is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
