Kane roundabout opens for traffic with ribbon cutting

A new roundabout that connects the realigned Bliss Road with Main Street and Fabyan Parkway in rural Kane County was celebrated Thursday with a ribbon cutting.

The nearly $12 million project was in the planning stage since 1996 and took two years to build, ultimately creating an alternative continuous north-south corridor between Randall Road and Route 47.

Main Street had a signal at its intersection with Fabyan Parkway and another signal at the Bliss Road intersection, resulting in traffic backups and car crashes.

The roundabout, west of Batavia, will save lives by creating a safer way to travel, Kane County Board Chair Corinne Pierog said.

"What an amazingly concrete example of the work ... the county does to serve its citizens," Pierog said. "It keeps our motorists moving to make commerce efficient, to make our transportation, our travels to see our family, our friends, our doctors efficient."

Transportation Deputy Director Thomas Rickert thanked the Batavia Park District for its cooperation in the project.

"Your coordination with (engineer) Jennifer O'Connell ... over the last decade in order to make sure we were facilitating this project and bringing it to fruition," Rickert said. "We thank the forest preserve because of all the help they gave us in protecting the right of way during the early 2000s."

He said the work included a separate tree contract where the transportation department worked with the forest preserve to plant 400 trees in Elburn Forest Preserve.

"Those trees now have been in place and established for two years and growing," Rickert said.

The project also replaced the traffic signals with the roundabout, improved ditch and stormwater detention, provided access and a crosswalk for future park development, naturalized detention basis and a culvert over Lake Run Creek, county documents show.