Will County Forest Preserve Board Takes Action to Create Bikeways Plan

Submitted by the Forest Preserve District of Will County.

The Forest Preserve District of Will County has taken a major step forward toward the creation of a countywide bikeway plan.

The District’s Board of Commissioners voted Thursday to hire Chicago-based AECOM Technical Services Inc. to draft the bikeway plan at a cost of $48,477. The plan, due for completion in July 2016, will identify areas where non-motorized transportation opportunities can be expanded throughout Will County and beyond.

“Over the last two decades the Forest Preserve District has been a leader in developing a regional trail system,” said Ralph Schultz, the District’s director of Planning and Operations. “This bikeway plan will take that work to the next level.”

AECOM also has been hired by the Will County Division of Transportation (WCDOT) to draft its 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan. Hiring the same company will help ensure that the bikeway plan and the transportation plan complement each other, Schultz said. The District’s bikeway plan will identify ways to better link communities to each other and to forest preserves and other open space.

“People love trails,” Schultz said. “Trails give members of the public the access they need to be outside for biking, hiking, walking or running. Some people use the trails to find a place to meditate or soak in nature. And trails offer an opportunity to escape the urban grid; trail users can be on a 10-foot wide path instead of a five-lane highway.”

Once the trail corridors most in need of expansion and improvement are identified, the District will work with its partners to complete the necessary links and upgrades. The Old Plank Road Trail is an example of regional cooperation between forest preserve districts in Will and Cook counties and the municipalities that helped build and maintain the 21-mile trail that stretches from Joliet in the west to Park Forest in the east.

“There is not one regional trail in Will County that hasn’t been built by partnerships,” Schultz said.

The District’s bikeway plan will look at greenways, roadways and utility corridors as potential sites for trail extensions. The District will be working with all major stakeholders who have an interest in connecting and extending trails. Input will be sought from members of the public, elected officials and the bicycling community through meetings and online as the plan takes shape.

Since 1995 when work began on the Old Plank Road Trail, the District has more than doubled its paved, limestone and natural surface trail mileage to the current total of 125 miles. For more information on the District and its trail system, visit ReconnectWithNature.org.