Forest Preserve of Will County Presents Plan for First Countywide Bikeway Network
The Forest Preserve of Will County recently announced its intention of creating the first Will County Bikeway Plan, according to The Herald News on Monday August 29th. The Plan, which is the first effort to create a countrywide bikeway network, has been developed by the Forest Preserve District of Will County with the support of the Will County Division of Transport (Will County DOT).
The term bikeway has been chosen in order to describe a variety of on and off-street bicycle facility types, since the Plan will consist of 14 strategic bikeway corridors (most of them not built yet) throughout the county. Many greenways and roadways have been reviewed as possible sites for the new bikeways, in addition to some other already existing corridors. In the Joliet area, the Centennial Trail/I&M Canal Trail and Old Plank Road Trail are two of the county’s five designated bikeway corridors.
These bikeways will serve as the backbone of non-vehicular transportation, according to the Forest Preserve District’s director of planning and development, Andrew Hawkins. The main difficulty of the project is that the bikeways will cross many different government entities and jurisdictions, and “development plans don’t always line up from one entity to another,” Hawkins explained. Thus, he hopes that “municipalities countywide adopt these designations and install trails that correspond with them when the time comes.”
The main goals of the Bikeway Plan, as described in the Plan draft, are to expand transportation choice, enhance connectivity and bicyclist comfort, as well as to improve safety and promote bicycling benefits for health, the environment and the community’s economic prosperity.
The Bikeway Plan was developed to complement and enhance the work of the Will Connects 2040 planning initiative (the county’s long-range transportation plan), since the county recognizes bicycle transportation as an important element of the county’s future mobility, public health and environmental stability.
Beginning this Wednesday August 31th, the public will be able review and give its opinion on the Plan draft at ReconnectWithNature.org. After the public feedback period, which ends on September 30th, the district’s board of commissioners will meet on November 10th to discuss the plan’s approval.
