County seeks public feedback on Plank Road work, roundabout proposals

SYCAMORE – DeKalb County officials are seeking public feedback on a proposal to realign Plank Road, and those interested can weigh in during two meetings scheduled for Thursday.

The projects, a realignment of a 3-mile stretch of Plank Road and a roundabout at the intersection of Plank and Lindgren roads, will be the topic of conversation from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday inside the DeKalb County Legislative Center, 200 N. Main St., Sycamore.

Engineer Nathan Schwartz said the meetings for the two projects will happen concurrently.

“We want to interact with the public once and inconvenience the public out of their schedules one time, instead of having them show up on two different days for meetings, especially with the topics being so similar,” Schwartz said.

Both projects would affect traffic along Plank Road northeast of Sycamore. Schwartz said he wants to make sure the public is up to speed with what the DeKalb County Highway Department has been working on.

In October, the DeKalb County Board awarded Aurora-based engineering firm Crawford, Murphy & Tilly a $553,452 contract for the first phase of engineering to realign Plank Road. The work would realign the roadway from the north of the North Grove Road intersection by curving east and reconnecting at the intersection with Lukens Road.

The total cost for the project is estimated between $12 million and $15 million, the most for a road project in DeKalb County history. Those numbers aren’t final, however, Schwartz said.

That project isn’t expected to be shovel-ready for years, but the proposed roundabout just west of the realignment could come to fruition sooner. Schwartz said the roundabout also is potentially cheaper for the county, with $2.5 million of the project’s $3 million estimated total cost funded through federal grants.

“The local participation is going to be fairly small compared to the overall cost of the project,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz said his department, and their consultant have looked at many options for the proposed projects and want to explain why they’ve made their decisions while gaining feedback from those who frequent the area.

“I would love to see a large number of people attending and good interaction,” Schwartz said. “I would love to see interactive conversations where people are asking questions and we get to respond.”

Informational videos on the potential projects will play in separate rooms from the legislative center’s Gathertorium, which will be divided into two sections. Schwartz said he hopes the videos helps attendees understand everything that already has gone into the current proposals.

He also said he knows each project still need further approval from the DeKalb County Board.

“It’s never a done deal until you contract with some contractor to build it. It could always be designed and not built, but this public meeting will help to decide, to verify that this is what we’re doing moving forward,” Schwartz said. “If it [the project] needs to be tweaked based on public comment this is the time to do that tweaking.”