http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2004/12/24/news/illiana/5ebd5622660538e086256f740001da9c.txt
Grant to help finish bike path
LANSING: Lan-Oak Park District has been working on trail for 10 years
BY PHIL ROCKROHR
Times Correspondent
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Friday, December 24, 2004 12:10 AM
CST
LANSING | Thanks to a $323,000 federal grant, Lan-Oak Park District
will be able to complete the final leg of its proposed bike path for
just $60,000.
The latter amount is how much Park District Director John Wilson
estimates Lan-Oak will contribute toward construction of the Pennsy
Spur section of the path.
"It's good news," Wilson said. "Hopefully, this will help us complete
the project that's been going on for 10 years now."
The 1.5-mile path will run from the Pennsy Greenway, just north of
186th Street on Wentworth Avenue, to the Cook County Forest Preserve,
where it will connect with the Old Plank Trail, he said.
The spur will be connected to the park district's main trail, which
will stretch three miles from the Little Calumet River to the state
line, Wilson said. At Wentworth and Legion Drive, riders will have an
option of heading east to Indiana or south to Old Plant Trail, he said.
The federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grant is the second
in two years awarded to the park district for the project, Wilson said.
"I don't have the exact numbers in front of me," he said. "But that's
probably about $1 million in funding from the federal government. The
local portion is probably $260,000, roughly."
On Wednesday, Lan-Oak officials met with engineers who reported state
officials have postponed bids scheduled to be let in January, Wilson
said. The Lan-Oak bike path is now scheduled to be bid in June.
"We thought we would break ground in May," Wilson said. "Now, because
of what's happening in Springfield, it will probably be August or
September."
The bike path likely will not be completed until late fall or spring
2006, he said.
In the meantime, Lansing officials are developing their plans for a
bike path cutting through the downtown Ridge Road business district.
Both Lansing and Lan-Oak must wait for the Illinois Department of
Transportation to finish widening Interstate 80/94 to finish the bike
path, Wilson said.
"A portion of the path may not be operational until at least a year
from now," he said. "Space has been reserved (with the department) for
the bike path."
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