The fifth Technical Advisory Group meeting was held at the Mundelein Holiday Inn on May 18, 2000 and focused on the following topics:

• Review of project accomplishments
• Roadway Refinement Process
• Performance Measures
• Finalist Improvements
• Next Steps

Chris Snyder/LCTIP welcomed representatives to the meeting and provided an overview of the meeting agenda and the day’s activities. Chris began the discussion with a review of the LCTIP accomplishments. To date, the project has completed a comprehensive review of the transportation system to identify the range of problems and issues, established a Purpose and Need, developed and refined the initial improvements, and recommended a finalist set of roadway and transit improvements for further consideration.

Chris reviewed the project’s Purpose and Need, followed by a review of the improvements included in the project baseline or project no-action, and the initial roadway and transit improvements presented at the Public Informational Meetings (PIM) held in August 1999.

Chris explained that following PIM #1 the LCTIP refined the initial improvements, to avoid or minimize impacts, and to enhance transportation performance (a detailed discussion of the refinement process follows in the next section of the presentation). He then presented the evaluation process that lead to the selection of the finalist roadway options—IL 53 (Freeway/Tollway) set of improvements and the IL83/US45 (with US 12) set of improvements—followed by a discussion of the finalist rail and bus improvements.

The finalist rail improvements include commuter rail service on the EJ&E from Waukegan to Spaulding (just south of Prairie Stone), additional parking at Metra stations, consolidation of freight service on the Union Pacific freight line, and signal improvements and turnback facilities (near Green Oaks) on the Milwaukee District North Line to enhance commuter service on this line. In addition to the rail improvements, five bus routes have been identified to improve service between home and work locations, and to enhance connections between bus-to-bus and bus-to-rail trips. These will be common to roadway options carried forward.

Chris then introduced Larry Martin/CH2M HILL who continued the presentation with a detailed discussion of the roadway refinement process. Larry explained that the objective of this process was to avoid and/or minimize impacts to resources, add engineering detail to the initial improvements to enhance the transportation performance of the improvements. The process included the identification of opportunities for community bypasses, the application of typical and constrained right-of-way widths, the development of a template or footprint for intersections, interchanges, and feeder road improvements, as well as the implementation of shifts in the roadway alignment at specific locations to avoid/minimize impacts.

Larry explained that community bypasses were considered in five locations: IL 120 in Grayslake, US 12 between IL 53 and Lake Cook Rd., IL 21 through downtown Libertyville, US 45 through Mundelein, and IL 60 in the Diamond Lake Area. Bypasses were considered due to the potential for severe disruptions/displacements to homes and businesses. Based on a detailed analysis the following improvements were selected:

• IL 120 on new bypass alignment, south of existing IL 120 between Fairfield Rd. and Almond Rd.
• US 12 on existing alignment
• IL 21 on bypass alignment, following IL 60 east to St. Mary’s Rd., north on St. Mary’s Rd. to IL 137, and IL 137 west to IL 21
• IL 60 on new bypass alignment in the Diamond Lake area, west of existing IL 60
• US 45 on new bypass alignment west of downtown Mundelein between IL 60 and IL 120

The selection of these route improvements minimized home/business impacts (as much as one-third to one-half fewer displacements) and still provided for the needed capacity improvements in these heavily traveled corridors.

After completion of the roadway refinement process, the number of improvement sets was narrowed from nine to seven. The IL 53 freeway set of improvements was combined with the IL 53 tollway set of improvements to form the IL 53 freeway/tollway set (similar footprint and travel performance based on the system-wide measures LCTIP is using), and the IL 120 set of improvements which followed the existing IL 120 alignment was dropped due to the selection of the IL 120 bypass in the Grayslake area.

Environmental and societal measures were assessed during the refinement process. Larry presented a summary of the potential park, forest preserve, wetland, home and business impacts, as well as the estimated project cost for each roadway option. For parks and forest preserves, the range of impact is 6 to 22 acres. The range of impact is 10 to 17 acres for high quality ADID wetlands, and 67 to 93 acres for non-ADID wetlands. Larry commented that this represents less than 1 percent of the total acreage for either wetlands or parks/forest preserve in Lake County. Overall, the environmental impacts are comparable. The analyses did not result in any roadway improvement set differentiating itself when environmental issues were compared in a comprehensive manner relative to one another. For home and business, the range of impact is 100 to nearly 250 displacements.

The LCTIP also estimated the cost for each roadway improvement set. The improvement costs were based on 1999 dollars (most current price information), and include both construction and right-of-way costs. The estimated project costs ranged from nearly $800 million to $1.1 billion dollars.

Next was a presentation of the transportation performance measures used to compare and evaluate the roadway sets of improvements. The project’s Purpose and Need was used to develop the performance measures and included: travel time savings, north-south traffic volume reduction, and north-south uncongested travel. Larry presented information on the performance of each roadway set using these transportation measures.

Based on the composite results of these analyses, the IL 53 (Freeway/Tollway) and the IL 83/US45 (with US 12) sets of improvements have the best overall travel performance and best achieve the project’s Purpose and Need. Therefore, these two roadway options were recommended for further evaluation.

In the next step of the process the LCTIP will more closely identify population and employment effects of each roadway option, combine the roadway and transit improvements to form complete alternatives, complete an evaluation of the finalist alternatives, publish the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, and hold a Public Hearing.

The floor was then opened for comments. Following is a summary of the comments received.

• What information, including the source of information, will be used for conducting refinements in subsequent steps?
• When you talk about the next steps, are you going to try to do things to refine the transit improvements—particularly bus improvements—for each alternative?
• Is it correct that bypasses are included in the IL 83/US 45 set of improvements, but not in the IL 53 set of improvements?
• I would like to compliment the study team for its comprehensive approach, particularly with regard to examining land use and transportation considerations.
• The capital cost estimate that you presented; is that for roadway transportation elements only? Can you elaborate on transit costs, for which you stated a dollar value?
• In your next steps, I understand you will carry both sets of roadway improvements forward in the DEIS. How will a decision then be made on a preferred alternative? How will that occur?
• The IL 83/US 45 alternative is comprised of improvements to many roadways. With this alternative, I have concerns that the improvements will be implemented in a piece meal manner.
• Can you expand on how you will assess impacts of the two alternatives in the DEIS?
• We’ve seen projected population increases attributable to various roadway improvements, including the IL 53 set of improvements. Will a population projection be developed for the IL 83/US 45 arterial expansion alternative?
• I’d like to have the County Transportation Committee seriously look at these alternatives to make preliminary conclusions.
• Are full exhibits available to anyone who needs or requests them?
• I’d like you to summarize congestion today, both east-west and north-south, versus in 2020, and link that to the two finalist alternatives.
• What time are the public meetings?
• Are you expecting municipal officials to attend the public meetings or will you be making individual presentations to elected officials?

The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 a.m.