April 24, 2024
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Construction now underway on trail near Montgomery library

Trail segment to provide link from Gilman Trail to library building north of Route 30

By John Etheredge

Excavation work has begun on a new segment of the Waubonsie Creek Trail located north of Route 30 on Montgomery's far east side. The trail will adjoin the Waubonsie Creek. (John Etheredge)

Construction has started on a shared use trail along the Waubonsie Creek on the far east side of Montgomery, north of Route 30.

When completed, the trail will provide a direct link between the Oswego Public Library District’s Montgomery Campus Library at 1111 Reading Drive and the Virgil Gilman Trail.

The Montgomery Village Board voted 5-0 June 28 to award a contract totaling $264,000 to Conley Excavating of Morris to construct the trail segment.

The trail segment will be part of the larger Waubonsie Creek Trail, which extends east from Brock Way in Oswego into Aurora near Fox Valley Mall. The portion of the trail in Montgomery is one of the last sections of the trail yet to be developed.

Conley’s bid was 26.8% below the village engineering consultants’ pre-bid estimate of $360,507 for the project and the lowest of seven bids received by the village.

To help finance the project, Kendall County awarded the village a $75,000 grant in February 2020 through the Kendall County Transportation Alternatives Program.

Fran Klaas, the Kendall County highway engineer, told the County Board last year that the general guideline for approved funds for the program, which is meant to help fund up to half the total cost of nonvehicular traffic projects in the county, is to award no more than $50,000 for a single project. However, Klass said, the Montgomery project initially was estimated at $382,700.

“Because the project is so expensive and also because it’s so important ... the committee felt that giving more than the $50,000 was appropriate,” Klaas said.

Klaas said the KC-TAP funds come from annual $50,000 transfers from the county’s transportation sales tax funds. He said the county was able to authorize the $160,000 in total funds this time around because not many communities have tapped into the KC-TAP fund in the past few years.

According to county documents, the village of Montgomery initially requested $75,600 from the county for the project. Klaas said the rationale to give $75,000 was to round down to an even number.