Project will end Illinois 3 gridlock
Joe Leicht
Of the Suburban Journals
November 10 Monroe County Clarion

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Area residents line up for the 25-minute wait to get into the Gateway Corridor public hearing at The Falls. (Terry Smith photo/Suburban Journals)

For a while during the long process by which the final route of the Gateway Connector was winnowed, Bernard Vogt of Waterloo thought the much anticipated highway could cross one of his properties.

Vogt owns acreage that hugs the Jefferson Barracks Bridge and along the N. Illinois 3 corridor where a line of billboards bridges the rural expanses and north Waterloo.

His excavating business is also within that corridor.

"Where they finally decided to have it, I have no land involved," Vogt said. "I would have owned the corners if they'd have come in at Fish Lake, but it's not going there."

Vogt said contrary to what some believe, "there isn't much profit in an individual owning land around the connector."

"The price of the property is frozen on the day the route is announced and IDOT (the Illinois Department of Transportation) puts restrictions on construction within the corridor," he said. "And you don't want your land to be at an intersection because there's going to be restricted access."

Nonetheless, Vogt said he is in favor of the Connector.

"The traffic count is so high, higher than it is in Troy, which is what started the whole thing," Vogt said. "Anybody that drives Route 3 in Columbia between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. can tell you it's gridlock.

"We need this. Personally, I think it should have swung out a little further to the south. That loop is going to be pretty tight. They should have brought it to some of the industrial sites in the bottoms because this county needs industrial sites."

Vogt said he agrees with officials in Columbia and Smithton who support the project "because it will spur economic development."

"It should even help the city (of Waterloo) with its 57-acre site," Vogt said. "Until they finalize it, the project is stagnating economic growth because nobody is real sure where it's going. But once they announce for sure, you're going to see some."

Vogt is also a member of the Monroe County Regional Planning Commission.

He twice suggested the commission take a more active role in giving IDOT input on the Connector, but mixed interests on the panel prevented any official action.