State budgets more than $168M to rebuild, widen Route 47 on Yorkville’s north, south sides

Funding for the reconstruction and widening of traffic-snarled Route 47 on Yorkville’s far north side is included in a $34.6 billion Illinois Department of Transportation spending plan unveiled by state officials this past Friday, Aug. 12, in Springfield.

IDOT’s 2024-2028 multiyear plan includes $168.2 million for improvements along Route 47 including:

• $67.2 million to pay for the engineering, reconstruction and construction of additional traffic lanes, bridges and culvert replacements, and other improvements along a 4.3-mile section of Route 47 extending south from Cross Street in Sugar Grove to 1/4 mile south of Galena Road in Yorkville.

• $57.5 million to pay for the engineering, reconstruction and construction of additional traffic lanes along a 2.3-mile section of Route 47 from Galena Road south to Kennedy Road in Yorkville.

• $43.5 million to pay for the engineering, reconstruction and construction of additional traffic lanes along a 4.2-mile section of Route 47 from Route 71 to Caton Farm Road on Yorkville’s far south side.

The multiyear plan also allocates $27.8 million for engineering, environmental studies, land acquisition and utility adjustments for the improvement of Route 126 from Route 71 in Yorkville east to the Will County Line.

Funding for all the improvements is budgeted during IDOT’s 2024-28 fiscal years.

The pending improvements along Route 47, especially on Yorkville’s north side extending to Sugar Grove in Kane County, should come as welcome news for many Kendall County-area motorists who now sit in daily rush-hour traffic backups on the crumbling, two-lane highway.

Funding for the projects will come from the 2019 Rebuild Illinois bipartisan infrastructure law, which doubled the state’s motor fuel tax from 19 cents to 38 cents a gallon and scheduled it to grow with the rate of inflation. That law also increased driving-related fees, redirected a portion of the state’s sales tax on motor fuel to the road fund and authorized borrowing to pay for construction projects.

“A little over three years ago, I signed our historic bipartisan infrastructure program into law,” Gov. JB Pritzker said at a news conference Aug. 12 at the IDOT building in Springfield. “And since then, Rebuild Illinois has undertaken a massive transformation of our state’s transportation systems.”

• Jerry Nowicki of Capital News Service Illinois contributed to this story.

Source: The Daily Chronicle