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CHAMPAIGN— State officials say construction could start "as early as summer of 2025" and wrap up by the end of 2026 on one of Champaign's busiest roadways.
At a Tuesday open house at Champaign Central High School, Illinois Department of Transportation officials gathered community input while sharing their vision for a years-in-the-making reconstruction of a 1.8-mile stretch of Prospect Avenue, from Marketview Drive to Springfield Avenue.
The state is looking to reduce the number of lanes on a 1-mile stretch of Prospect — from Springfield to Bradley — while at the same time increasing lane widths and adding buffered bike lanes.
As part of the $15.6 million project, IDOT is proposing to convert that stretch of Prospect — currently at four lanes, each about 9 to 10 feet wide — into two 11-foot-wide lanes, one in each direction, and one 10-foot wide middle turn lane.
Buffered bike lanes on each side of the road are also in the plans.
"The two-way left turn lane will certainly improve safety out there to help mitigate rear-end crashes for left-turning movements on the roadway," IDOT District 5 Project Manager Ryan Carroll said Tuesday.
IDOT's plans for Prospect from Bradley to Marketview, on the other hand, are simpler: to mill and resurface the road without changing the number of lanes or lane widths.
The Prospect project also calls for improvements to intersections, ADA accessibility and traffic signal modernization.
Carroll noted that the construction timeline is subject to change.
Tuesday's two-and-a-half-hour interactive meeting was well-attended, with about 80 community members showing up and signing in within the first hour. Residents who live near Prospect were given the chance to place stickers on a map to show where they live.
One such community member was Trisha Locke, who thinks the state's plans could help improve safety, as she's seen many accidents happen with vehicles turning along the street.
"By having only one lane for people to have to watch for cars, I think that might reduce some of the accidents," she said.
Champaign Planning Director Bruce Knight likewise said that Prospect is "one of the highest accident areas in the community" and has "the narrowest lanes of any arterial road in town."
He added that a lot of drivers weave between lanes, which creates accidents.
"(The project) means the road works for all modes of transportation," he said, describing the end result as "overall, a safer street."
Champaign resident Mike Sims, however, said he that while he's glad the road will be resurfaced, he's unsure how to feel about about the proposed lane changes.
"I'm kind of up in the air about going from four lanes to three lanes," he said. "I'm not sold on that. I hope it works."
He expressed concern that reducing the number of lanes from Springfield to Bradley could lead to traffic getting backed up if someone's waiting to turn.
"It's a tough balance to strike," said Champaign resident and bicyclist Jacob Benjamin. "It's a major car thoroughfare."
However, he believes that going down to three lanes "sounds reasonable" and will hopefully make the road safer for all travelers.
"I've never felt safe driving on that road, let alone riding my bike," Benjamin said.
He's glad that bike lanes are included in the project, though he added that he won't know how he feels about riding on them until he has the chance to try it out for real.
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Another piece of the project that will likely be of public interest is the impact on neighboring properties. The state estimates that it will need to acquire about a half-acre of right-of-way for the project, which is currently in the planning and preliminary design phase.
"Right now, we're in the Phase I study process where we've kind of established the need and set our planned proposed improvement," Carroll said. "We would determine that roadway cross-section based on working with the city of Champaign to accommodate all road users, bicyclists, buses, cars, trucks. And then setting our preliminary construction limits based on that."
Once the Phase II final design process begins, IDOT will start to work with affected property owners, Carroll said. The process will include having the state's land acquisition team appraise impacted properties and negotiate a sale based on "fair market value."
Most of the properties that will be affected will be those at intersections and corners as the state constructs ADA-accessible ramps.
"Personally, I think it's minimal, just because it's at those corners," Carroll said. "I mean, we don't have a need to take a strip of right-of-way all along the entire corridor from Springfield to Bradley, which is where most of that will be taking place, given the new roadway cross-section with the bike lanes and the turn lanes."
