Elgin to put Summit roundabout on back burner

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Artist's drawing of a proposed roundabout in Elgin at Summit Street, Dundee Avenue and Gifford Street. | Submitted Image

Updated: November 16, 2011 1:55AM

ELGIN — Elgin’s newly-elected Mayor David Kaptain has already said he does not support plans for a traffic roundabout at Summit Street and Dundee Avenue.

So it comes as no surprise that the city council is looking to shelve those plans.

The council on Wednesday will discuss plans to cancel the long-discussed project and return $81,520 in grant funds to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Those grant funds were used to repay Elgin for money already spent on property acquisition.

Elgin began talking about making improvements to the near-east side intersection back in 1992 as a way to ease east/west traffic congestion for vehicles needing to cross over the Fox River. Over the years, improvements have been made by way of widening Kimball Street between Route 31 (State Street) and Dundee Avenue, and improving the intersection at State and Wing streets.

The Dundee/Summit intersection improvement was to be the third part of that traffic fix.

Originally, Elgin proposed additional turn lanes and a more modern traffic light and lane design at Dundee and Summit, but at least one adjoining business balked at the design. The roundabout was then proposed as a way to allow continued access to all businesses adjoining the intersection. Property would need to be purchased, some likely through eminent domain, to create room for the roundabout.

However, traffic at the snarly intersection is not what a 1995 study led the city to believe it would be by now, and there are no outside funds available to complete the project, said Rick Kozal, assistant city manager.

“The numbers are not panning out and the structural budget deficit has caused us to rethink everything … with the recognition that there is a declining amount of dollars for capital expenses,” Kozal said.

At the same time, the traffic anticipated when the study was first commissioned has not come to fruition. “With the decline in the economy, the growth expected has not occurred, it has not produced the traffic projected in 1995, and it is not worthwhile to go forward with the (property) acquisitions at this time,” Kozal said.

So far, Elgin has spent about $653,432 in design work for improving the intersection, and another $206,816 to purchase the former Dunkin’ Donuts building on the northeast corner — a price Kozal called “fire sale” for the city. No other property has been purchased there, Kozal said, and the cost of acquiring the property needed, including a dry cleaning business on the southeast corner, is unknown.

Elgin is not dumping the roundabout plans altogether, Kozal said, but putting them on the back burner because other roads need attention. If the intersection needs work in the future, the city could pick up the roundabout plans and revisit them at a later date, he said.

“The work we have done does not go away. If things change, we can dust them off in the future,” Kozal said.

In other business, the council is set to discuss the city’s business licensing fees. First approved in 2009 and enacted in June 2010, the licensing runs from $35 to $595 a year, depending on square footage of the business space.

At least one new organization that has organized on Facebook and has a website, Elgin OCTAVE (Operant Conditioning To Achieve Voter Expectations), has publicly said they are working to eliminate those fees.