Riverside village staff will seek further funding from Cook County before affirming its continued participation in the Des Plaines River Trail south extension project, which aims to increase regional bicycle connectivity.
Trustees on Oct. 2 agreed with staff’s recommendation that Riverside not yet make a financial commitment to the project. Village President Doug Pollock estimated Riverside’s 20% share of the price could cost the village as much as $750,000 for construction to connect the trail from the Brookfield border at Golfview Avenue along 31st Street to Cook County Forest Preserve property south of Waubansee Road.
Riverside first joined the project in 2019, when it signed onto an intergovernmental agreement with Brookfield as the lead agency as well as Lyons, LaGrange Park and the county Forest Preserves.
At that time, the village committed $34,773 toward the first phase of engineering, which is now reaching its conclusion, said Anne Cyran, Riverside’s community development director.
Cyran said Lyons and LaGrange Park have since left the project.
The regional project, which was resuscitated early last year, seeks to fill in gaps in the Des Plaines River Trail, which runs for 55 miles through Lake and Cook counties until reaching a 6.5-mile breach before it picks back up at Ogden Avenue in Lyons to run south for another mile.
Now, the plan calls for the trail to be extended along 31st Street from Brookfield into Riverside, where it would head south at First Avenue before ducking west alongside Waubansee Road. From there, it would turn south again into Forest Preserves property, meeting First Avenue again within Lyons and following it to Ogden Avenue before snaking east along the south bank of the Des Plaines River.
If grant funding can be secured to cover 80% of the project costs as intended, Riverside would owe $152,600 for the extension along 31st Street from Golfview Avenue to First Avenue.
Village Manager Jessica Frances said Riverside’s share of the cost for needed work along First Avenue south of Forest Avenue was estimated in late 2022 to be $365,000.
Frances told trustees it was unclear whether that estimate included the price for additional work that may be needed to repave the existing path along Waubansee Road, replacing the five-foot-wide exposed aggregate concrete that is allowed under village code with 10-foot-wide asphalt that would be an exception from the code.
Together, those estimates show a minimum price tag of $517,600 for Riverside, which Pollock said could inflate to about $750,000 if there is additional cost for work along Waubansee Avenue.
In prompting trustees to consider whether Riverside should continue to be part of the project, Pollock said he felt the regional benefit outweighed the local gain, which is not reflected in the cost share.
“My personal opinion is that, given that [the benefit is] more regional, that it should be a regional cost, either through the country or the state,” he said. “Can we prioritize half a million dollars — and I got to believe it’s going to be closer to a three-quarters of a million dollars — can we prioritize that over all the other infrastructure projects we have going?”
The village trustees seemed to agree, reaching a consensus that Riverside ought to continue to be part of project discussions without yet agreeing to pay the estimated costs.
“Generally speaking, having inter-suburban connectivity is very important. Our bike infrastructure in this western suburban area is not ideal,” said Trustee Aberdeen Marsh-Ozga. “If the funding doesn’t come through, would I say we should prioritize this over other things that are important to the village? No, but I think we should continue to be part of the discussion.”
Trustees agreed with Frances’ suggestion to coordinate further with Cook County and seek more funding from it to cover some of Riverside’s 20% share of the cost due to the regional benefit of the project outweighing the local.
