McHenry County Better Roads Coalition

Letter to Illinois Delegates from the US Congress

The Coalition
The McHenry County Better Roads Coalition is a grass roots organization comprised of residents, businesses, municipalities, and civic entities whose mission is to secure State and Federal funding for regional roadway improvements to address congestion in McHenry County.

The Congestion
As anyone that drives in McHenry knows, there are too many vehicles trying to get around a roadway system that can’t handle the traffic volumes. When was the last time it took you 15 minutes to get across the Fox River on Algonquin Road, or waited in Huntley in a back-up caused by the Main Street/Route 47, Miller Road at Route 31 in McHenry or get thru Richmond on a Sunday evening? The list of roadway improvements needed in McHenry County is so long that if you came up with a list of your ten favorites, you’d probably still have a few left over.

The Money
So why don’t we just widen the roads. The answer to that question is “THERE IS NO MONEY”. At least that’s what we are told in McHenry County. It takes money to design and build roads. Add to that the cost of buying additional land which is usually necessary to widen roads and it ends up being a whole lot of money. How much money? As an example, the cost of the Algonquin Road Improvement which the County is currently building from Randall Road to Lakewood Road is $19 million. And that doesn’t include engineering and buying extra land needed for the widening. The Algonquin Bypass is estimated to cost upwards of $80 million.

The Taxes – YOUR Taxes
Where does the money to build roadway improvements come from? Your taxes, but the answer is a little more complicated than that. Different roads in McHenry County are taken care of by different government agencies. Most of the larger roads(Route 31, Route 47, Route 120,Route 176, US 14, and US 20) are supposed to be taken care of by the Illinois Department of Transportation. Some of the larger roads (Rakow Road, Algonquin Road and Randall Road) and the most “mid-sized” roads are the responsibility of the McHenry County Division of transportation. The lesser traveled roads are typically taken care of by the various Cities, Villages, and Townships. If that is not confusing enough, sometimes Federal money gets used on County roads and State money gets spent on local streets. So the real question to ask is ”Who controls most of the money spent on roads in McHenry” The answer to that question is “THE STATE OF ILLINOIS”.

Motorist in McHenry County pay a number of different taxes and fees for the privilege of owning and operating motor vehicles. The State of Illinois collects 19 cents a gallon in motor fuel tax plus another 18 cents a gallon in sales tax. The federal gas tax rate is 18.4 cents a gallon, McHenry County collects 4 cents a gallon, and don’t forget the fees for License Plates. Add to that road use taxes on trucks, excise tax on tires, sales tax on purchase and lease of vehicles and what you discover is that “government” is collecting of lot of money from drivers. The County controls the 4 cents that they collect, and they are using that money to build Algonquin Road. But the state of Illinois ultimately controls not only money they collect, but also the money that the Federal government collects, as 80% of the money that Illinois gets from the Federal government comes back to State government as a “block” grand, that the administration can use anywhere they would like. And very, very little of that money is being spent in McHenry County. As a result of these shortfalls, U.S. News & World Report’s list of 10 Worst Counties in the country for traffic congestion ranks McHenry County 7th!