Veterans Memorial Trail, along Interstate 355, nears approval

JOLIET – The Veterans Memorial Trail, intended to run along Interstate 355 from 127th Street in Lemont to Route 6 in New Lenox, is one step closer to existence.

The Will County Forest Preserve District’s Operations Committee voted Wednesday in favor of an intergovernmental agreement between the district and the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority to eventually build most of the 4.73-mile bike path on the outside edge of the tollway’s right of way.

Although construction of the bike path will not start until 2019 at the earliest, the agreement must be approved July 14 by the district’s full board in order to proceed. Forest Preserve District Chief Operating Officer Ralph Schultz said Thursday the agreement is needed to find funding for the “extremely early” estimate of $7 million for the entire trail.

“The agreement obligates the tollway to allow the district to use tollway right of way for bike trails where the district can,” Schultz said. “It then obligates the district to pay for, and maintain, those trails.”

The district will apply for grant funds via the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program section of the Illinois Department of Transportation, the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality section of the Federal Highway Authority, and the Illinois Bikeway Program through the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. All three entities are aimed at transporting people as fluidly as possible with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of vehicles on roadways, Schultz said.

About 80 percent of funding will come from federal or state sources, and 20 percent will come from local sources, Schultz said. Over the next couple years, the district needs to reach agreements with certain municipalities regarding a few small sections of the bike path that divert off tollway right of way. The diversions are because of impediments, such as a tollway facility or landmarks.

Schultz said municipalities also could ask developers to pay for a bike path rather than a sidewalk when developing properties that the trail would pass through. This could reduce local costs as well.

The concept of the trail dates back to the 1990s, Schultz said, when tollway officials expressed an intent to have a bike path built within I-355’s right of way as part of their environmental impact study.

The largely north-south Veterans Memorial Trail will connect existing trail systems in three counties and provide a link across the Des Plaines River Valley, which has been a major blockage to regional trail connections.

It will connect the 20-mile Centennial Trail System, the 120-mile I&M Canal Trail Systems and the 9-mile Spring Creek Trail System. The VMT also will connect Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve in DuPage County to the 20-mile Old Plank Road Trail in Will and Cook counties via street routes.