Randall road in Algonquin (Chicago, Bolingbrook: shopping mall, bus, friendly)

[NannyinHE]

its like I've heard:

With the traffic changing the way it has in the last five years, VEHICLE WISE, this is what seems to be happening:

Algonquin/LITH is becoming the next McHenry, McHenry is becoming the next Crystal Lake, Crystal Lake is becoming the next Schaumburg and Schaumburg is becoming the next Chicago.

[chet everett]

You mean that since VEHICLE WISE Chicago has about 100,000 people come in via rail that soon Schaumburg will have massive investment in commuter and rapid transit rail?




The problem with any sort of vehicle based projection is that are too many variable. "The next xxxxxxxx" is impossible to predict when it comes to employment. Think of the 3Com site or melt down that Motorola is going through or look out at Naperville and the MILLIONS of sq ft of vacant space from Lucent.

It is pretty clear that the population will not collapse in the eastern McHenry Co. corridor the way farm analysts think will happen further west, but I would not put money on how fast the towns you mention will grow or just reshuffle...

Toss in high gas prices and congested streets and the rate of change is likely to slow.

Originally Posted by NannyinHE

its like I've heard:
With the traffic changing the way it has in the last five years, VEHICLE WISE, this is what seems to be happening:
Algonquin/LITH is becoming the next McHenry, McHenry is becoming the next Crystal Lake, Crystal Lake is becoming the next Schaumburg and Schaumburg is becoming the next Chicago.

[chickadoo]

Originally Posted by diane3

I love Algonquin/Lake In the Hills/Crystal Lake area. I grew up there and even though it has gotten much more busy they still have everything and its all in one place. It is a lot less crazy then Schaumburg and houses our cheaper out there and Crystal Lake schools are great. If I didn't work in Palatine I would be still living in Crystal Lake.

I work in LITH and live on the border of Schaumburg. I completely disagree.

I'm not sure when the last time you actually drove through the area of Algonquin during rush hour, but from someone who does this often, I can surely say that Schaumburg traffic beats Randall Rd traffic any day. I can actually drive 2 miles in under 20 minutes in Schaumburg. Whereas in Algonquin, it can take me up to 25 min to just travel 1 mile. This happened to me just the other morning. I was stuck, with no other alternative. Either get trapped in traffic on Algonquin Rd going over the Fox River for 25 min, or get trapped on Randall....hmmm. Neither works well.

In just the past 3 yrs, the population, traffic congestion, and shopping strip tumors have surpassed what it ever was. The once beautiful sunsets on the cornfield horizons are swiftly becoming early sunsets on the concrete jungle horizon.

Truthfully, I'm happy to have decided to stay put and not move to LITH this past year as I had planned to. The Fox River Valley is not what it used to be. It's been turned into an ugly mess. If someone really wanted to make something special out of an upcoming development, there was so much potential to be had there. But unfortunately, greedy little hands all got into the pot and made a poorly planned mess out of it all. What's worse, now, the Randall Road team is actually propossing to tear down some 20 homes to make the road even bigger. Talk about poor planning!

[eastsiders]

When we moved to Barrington over 2 years ago we chose Barrington because of its small town lifestyle, low density and great schools. Barrington's low density school district can afford a great school system because it is prudently managed and it is filled with many very valuable properties. While we considered Cary for its small town lifestyle and very good high school (Crystal Lake school district), we learned from a variety of forums and several visits that Cary's elementary and middle school district was a financial mess and that Cary's commercial tax base was very small.

We also considered LITH and Crystal Lake for the schools and found some very good neighborhoods (around the Lake and around Boulder Ridge GC). While we recognized that commerce and density provided a tax base to support the schools, it was not what we wanted at the time.

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by chickadoo

I'm not sure when the last time you actually drove through the area of Algonquin during rush hour, but from someone who does this often, I can surely say that Schaumburg traffic beats Randall Rd traffic any day. I can actually drive 2 miles in under 20 minutes in Schaumburg. Whereas in Algonquin, it can take me up to 25 min to just travel 1 mile. This happened to me just the other morning. I was stuck, with no other alternative. Either get trapped in traffic on Algonquin Rd going over the Fox River for 25 min, or get trapped on Randall....hmmm. Neither works well.

That is NOT my experience. I can make it from Crystal Lake to Algonquin Commons at 5 pm in about 20 minutes during rush hour - about eight miles.

The major traffic jam spots in the county are not on Randall. They are on Southbound IL-31 for one mile north of IL-62 and IL-47 through the northern portion of Huntley.

[chet everett]

I was up that way last night. The shopping is a lot like it is along Rand through Deer Park or Lake Zurich. The traffic speeds much higher. The spotty mix of still active cornfields was very troubling, as if no one learned any lessons from scahumburg, Naperville, Plainfield or St. Charles --poor zoning and lack of coordinated planning is going to have a nightmare situation that will drag on for a long time. Parcels to big for any but deep pockets developers to mass convert from open fields to poorly thought out subdivisions that will likely be moderate / low density and quality...

Without some strong organizing / limiting element from the commuting and or nature patterns I see snarl city being the norm.

[nanannie]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I was up that way last night. The shopping is a lot like it is along Rand through Deer Park or Lake Zurich. The traffic speeds much higher. The spotty mix of still active cornfields was very troubling, as if no one learned any lessons from scahumburg, Naperville, Plainfield or St. Charles --poor zoning and lack of coordinated planning is going to have a nightmare situation that will drag on for a long time. Parcels to big for any but deep pockets developers to mass convert from open fields to poorly thought out subdivisions that will likely be moderate / low density and quality...

Without some strong organizing / limiting element from the commuting and or nature patterns I see snarl city being the norm.

You are so right ~
Mr E, when are you going to run for office? Why dont my elected officals have this much common sense?

[chet everett]

The lure of local sales tax is heat drive towns to green light retail. They shortsightedly all want of piece of that revune. The work it takes to have communities cooperate on setting the site for a more regional approach probably won't happen unless there is a regional authority to overrule this sort of thing. That too is fraught with problems, and slows down development to the point where land owners will deliberately circumvent such efforts...

Really the good development practices seem to have been born after the coeval war, with towns that had rail lines, manufacurers, residential districts, shared core...

Too bad few developers learn from the past.

[MannheimMadman]

The crappy traffic on the main boulevards has been a problem with all the 'small towns gone big'. For instance, I moved to Naperville at the onset of their big boom in 1996. My parents were able to traverse Ogden ave (rt 34) and IL 59 all day long with very few traffic issues....even the strip of 59 where Fox Valley Mall is.

When 2000 and 2001 came and Naperville exploded, all hell broke loose. RT 59 was a parking lot between 3-7 on most weekdays, and for a good part of Saturday and Sunday.

And just like Algonquin, St. Charles and Carpentersville, the powers that be thought a two-lane-each-way road would be sufficient. Obviously, it wasn't. I visit my parents in Carpentersville all the time, as they live off of Randall and Miller by the Dominicks. It's true about what the one poster said; you can either sit on snarled traffic on Randall, or you can try it on RT 31. Either way sucks.

[cubssoxfan]

Originally Posted by MannheimMadman

The crappy traffic on the main boulevards has been a problem with all the 'small towns gone big'. For instance, I moved to Naperville at the onset of their big boom in 1996. My parents were able to traverse Ogden ave (rt 34) and IL 59 all day long with very few traffic issues....even the strip of 59 where Fox Valley Mall is.

When 2000 and 2001 came and Naperville exploded, all hell broke loose. RT 59 was a parking lot between 3-7 on most weekdays, and for a good part of Saturday and Sunday.

And just like Algonquin, St. Charles and Carpentersville, the powers that be thought a two-lane-each-way road would be sufficient. Obviously, it wasn't. I visit my parents in Carpentersville all the time, as they live off of Randall and Miller by the Dominicks. It's true about what the one poster said; you can either sit on snarled traffic on Randall, or you can try it on RT 31. Either way sucks.

Yes and expressways planned 50 years ago to keep up with the outward migration to the farther suburbs got scrapped due to poor planning, and weak-spined politicians who caved to any NIMBY objections. The Fox Valley expressway would have helped alleviate some of the current traffic issues. AND how long have the played around with the 2nd bridge over the Fox river to alleviate traffic on Rte 62. ANd why isn't rte 31 4-6 lanes from Crystal Lake all the way to I-90? And why isn't rte 62 4-lanes all the way from rte 25 to Barrington Rd?? And please don't start with the "It will bring more traffic BS". Just do not zone for commercial and zone residential in a far less dense manner and you eliminate a lot of the problems. But the politicians want the "quick fix" tax revenue and the other favors that often accompany development deals.