Route 53 Where Are You?

The news hit your LakeCountyEye like an incumbent office-holder driving with SR-22 insurance: Don't expect to be scoopin' the Route 53 extension any time during your lifetime. According to the Pioneer Press, Illinois State Toll Highway Authority has no money to spend on the project:

Lake County loses Route 53 extension bid

If Route 53 is now literally a highway to oblivion, what is your LakeCountyEye to do for hilarious material? (With the exception of Island Lake) the jokes don't write themselves in Lake County. Operatives will observe that the Route 53 Extension comprises a significant chunk of your LakeCountyEye's comedic output:

Without Route 53 to kick around any more, does that mean your LakeCountyEye will have to blog about politicians or something? This is enough to drive your LakeCountyEye to Nippersink.

But enough with the jokes, this is serious.

Note to operatives: get on the horn, toot-sweet, and call the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority. Tell them to catch a clue and re-route the Route 53 extension through Old Mill Creek. Your LakeCountyEye guarantees the funding will show up -- from somewhere, like magic -- to send Route 53 somewhere else. Like through Long Grove or Lindenhurst something. Somewhere not in Old Mill Creek.

The Big Leak

Shocking revelations unearthed last week on this blog ...

Collision Course

have sent tremors the size of grapefruit-sized hailstones throughout Lake County. Proposed County projects to both extend Route 53 and to construct a Lake Michigan waterpipe will, if enacted, lead to an engineering disaster to rival the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

Top-Secret cartographic evidence obtained from the WikiLeaks ...

... shows what Lake County officials have known for some time -- that the two projects are on an unavoidable collision course.

Route 53 and the Lake Michigan water pipe will not only collide, but the trainwreck is projected to occur within city limits of sleepy bedroom community Hawthorn Woods.

(Your LakeCountyEye has learned that a surf-and-turf war is already being waged by backers of the two projects. Rival construction crews have been billeted in what is to be a race to break ground within Hawthorn Woods. The construction project that is first to reach Hawthorn Woods will be the project that claims the right-of-way.)

Their image consultants have advised County officials to not comment on the leaked documents; in fact not to mention the word leak at all. These same officials, not surprisingly, are downplaying the embarrassing revelations.

Seepage, for instance, is projected to send thousands of gallons of Lake Michigan water into the Hawthorn Woods Aquatic Center. Which ironically is expected to keep the cash-strapped municipal water park out of dry-dock. County officials are touting benefits like these -- to offset criticism of a seemingly ill-advised scheme to pass a limited access highway through a freshwater aqueduct. Or vice-versa. Depending on who gets there first.

Ten More Anticipated Benefits from Intersecting Route 53 with a Lake Michigan Water Pipe

Road salt is a natural water softener. Holes to be punched in the water pipe; underneath will pass the Route 53 No-Touch Car-Wash. Route 53 to be renamed the Irrigation Superhighway. Nearby homes will be close to transportation. With a Lake Michigan view. Route 53 red light cameras to be under the jurisdiction of Maritime Law. Expect comical newspaper headlines when Asian cars collide with Asian carp. Build a Lake Michigan boat slip and that Tollway Oasis pays for itself. After accidents, clean-up crews can stage impromptu Fox Lake Water Fights. Lake County sales on Aqua-Cars expected to go through the roof. Illinois Tollway pirates will be required to staff Route 53 toll booths with actual pirates. Arrr!

It's turned out to be a nice day. Operatives cruising Route 53 are advised to keep an eye peeled for the LakeCountyEye Low-Speed Vehicle.

Collision Course

It's no secret that Lake County harbors a thirst for Lake Michigan water ...

Water Pipe Dreams

The Northern Lake County Lake Michigan Water Planning Group is charged with getting the water. Bureaucratic wheels don't spin free, however, and the Water Planning Group wants its 10 community members to pitch in $50,000 each, in earnest money. Those $50K checks, however, must all be lost in the mail -- it's beginning to look like the whole water project is about to go up in smoke. Why else would the Lake County Board be trying to light a fire now under the Water Planning Group? The Daily Herald reported some of the details:

"We have some very good mayors who understand the issues. It behooves them to put some shoe leather into this," Suzi Schmidt said. Some committee members were irked with recent comments made by Antioch officials, who last week delayed a vote on the $50,000 contribution. Village trustees cited a lack of information and leadership at the county level as to how that money would be spent. "I don't think they understand this (Lake Michigan water) is a one-shot choice," said county board member Diana O'Kelly, who chairs the public works committee.
Lake County water quest needs local push

The County Board, no doubt, looks at Lake Michigan and sees a reservoir of construction contracts. An iceberg of pork waiting to be shaved off a polar ice shelf.

But water isn't the only place where the money is, it also takes dollars to build roads. The Lake County Board is also contriving to light a Route-53 fire under the goldbricks on the Illinois Tollway. According to the Pioneer Local ...

Lake County Board Chairman Suzi Schmidt, R-3rd, of Lake Villa, who spoke at the tollway meeting, said she is glad the Route 53 is finally getting serious consideration again by the tollway board after the project has been seemingly dormant for several years. "I'm pleased they are looking at and it's finally getting some attention," she said. "I don't know what the outcome is going to be. I'm hoping it moves forward and something gets done."
Route 53 extension back on radar

Your LakeCountyEye, in principle, brooks no objection toward the County Board doling out the pork to their contributors contractors -- provided the pork is other-people's-money. However as the result of an exclusive LakeCountyEye investigation, this blog can report that the County Board has overreached -- gone a Route-53 bridge-too-far, so to speak.

Has anyone considered the impact that two simultaneous gargantuan construction projects -- like a Route 53 and a Lake Michigan water pipe -- will have on the County? Your LakeCountyEye has, with some disturbing findings:

Proposed Route 53	Proposed Water Pipe
Route 53 Referendum Question	Northern Lake County Lake Michigan Water Planning Project

Above are maps of the proposed routes that Route 53 and the Lake Michigan water pipe will take. An overlay of the two maps is reproduced below. The heavy black line represents the proposed water pipe. The heavy red line is Route 53.



And the evidence from the zoom below is unmistakable.



Route 53 and the Lake Michigan water pipe are on a collision course! Their trajectories necessitate that the two projects will accordion somewhere in Hawthorn Woods.

Needless to say this is not the end of the story. Some would surmise this is only the beginning ...

Extending Route 53

The Lake County Board Public Works and Transportation committee meeting on January 14 decided unanimously to send to the full County Board the question of putting a non-binding referendum question on the April 7th ballot “an advisory vote should be held to gauge public sentiment on the idea of extending Route 53.” The full Board is expected to take up the matter on January 20.

Word has it that a number of previous opponents to extending route 53 are in favor of this question being put before the voters. This is an issue that has been studied and debated to ad nausea. It has been held up by a former State Senator whose backyard, rumor has it, would abut to the new highway, a current long time State Rep who wouldn’t comment on the issue, nor any other issue during the last election, and the Village of Long Grove. Meanwhile many Lake County commuters sit in traffic jams due to poorly designed roads and poor land use planning throughout the County.

What do you think? Let "Keeping an eye on Lake County" know if you think route 53 should be extended to Route 12 at the Wisconsin border or if you think it shouldn’t be extended, or if you other ideas on the subject.