Location
South Elgin, IL
Client
Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning
Services
Bicycle + Pedestrian Planning
South Elgin Bicycle + Pedestrian Plan
The Village of South Elgin is a growing community on the outskirts of the developed Chicago region. The Village sits along the Fox River with the original Village Center centered on its banks. The community grew in stages, with a large boom in the 1990s. With each new stage of development, more land was acquired and adopted the pattern of current thinking at the time. A mix of land use and transportation patterns has emerged.
Bicycle facilities currently consist of shared use paths, along the Fox River and through Forest Preserves, and sidepaths along major arterial streets. The facilities are disjointed and some major thoroughfares lack bike routes altogether. From a pedestrian mobility perspective, the network is also disjointed. Some subdivisions are very amenable while others lack basic sidewalks, depending on when the land was developed. Sam Schwartz’s plan will develop priorities to connect bicyclists and pedestrians to and between the existing facilities to create a complete network. A major focus will be on connecting residents to the existing trails, which are part of a broad, regional network. This project also included an inventory of pedestrian facilities through the Village and an analysis of the ADA-compliance of sidewalks and curb ramps within the Village Center.