McHenry County Planners Give Update on Randall Road Improvement Project

McHenry County Planners clarified the numbers for the Randall Road Improvement project in Algonquin and Lake in the Hills.

The First Electric Newspaper reports:

Originally the Randall upgrade was supposed to run from County Line Road in Algonquin north past Algonquin Road to Ackman Road in Crystal Lake. However, the south end was truncated so it would only run from about Algonquin's Harnish Drive to Ackman. The cost two years ago was estimated at $115 million but the estimate on April 1 was only $97 million.

Even that figure's outdated in practical terms, though. County Planners currently figure the north end from Acorn Drive in Lake in the Hills to Ackman would cost $27 million to build and there isn't enough funding to do that, so it's been pushed off into the indefinite (at least six years out, anyway) future.

That leaves an estimated $70 million required for the remainder. However, almost $19 million of that figure is what accountants call sunk costs. It's the amount that's already been spent for engineering and right of way for the project. In other words, the remaining cost for improvements from Harnish to Acorn will cost, by current estimates, $51 million. The County's share of that is supposed to be just short of $34 million but almost $6 million of it's to acquire the rest of the right of way. That's supposed to come out of the County's share of the RTA gas tax which legislators earmarked for transportation, anyway.

The agenda for next week's meeting of the County Board hasn't been published yet, but both the latest Five Year Transportation Plan and authorization for $10 million worth of Randall property acquisition are expected to be on it, according to the article.

More via First Electric Newspaper

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