Noisier Summer For Far East Hinsdale: Officials

HINSDALE, IL – The years-long Interstate 294 project is expected to be noisier for far east Hinsdale starting in the spring, officials said Thursday.

The Illinois Tollway plans to take down the noise wall along the Hinsdale part of the expressway and then build a new one later.

This is contrary to an agreement between the village and the Illinois Tollway years ago. That pact called for the state to take down the old wall after the new one was built.

At a Village Board meeting, Village President Tom Cauley said lawyers and state employees drafted the agreement before the project was designed.

"Now that the tollway has been designed, that is unworkable," Cauley said. "There's just not enough room to build a new sound wall and then take down the old sound wall afterward."

An official in the Illinois Tollway's engineering department said some of the wall would be built above retaining walls, requiring earthwork beforehand.

"There's extra time involved in that. But there's an offsetting benefit to that by the reduction of right-of-way acquisitions," the official, Jeff Allen, told the board.

Allen also said the new wall would be thicker than the previous one, meaning less noise for residents in the long run.

Meanwhile, a temporary wooden fence would be installed. That fence would not reduce sound, but screen off the expressway from the houses, Allen said.

Parts of the new wall could be done by fall, but some of it may take until spring 2025, Allen said.

Stifflear said Hinsdale's far eastern neighborhoods would have no wall when most people are outside. He said he worried about the noise.

"I think we're going to have a big problem with a lot of the residents in the area on this," he said. "We have to the letter (in the agreement) that the new sound walls were going to go up before the old ones were taken down. We're going to have to report to our constituents about why that's not the case."

When Stifflear asked about the approximate impact on decibel levels for neighbors, Allen said he didn't have that information readily available, but could provide it later.

The Illinois Tollway plans four neighborhood meetings this month about the noise wall project.

Allen said the agency did not receive a lot of complaints on the noise wall construction on the other side of the expressway, which is Western Springs.