Career Center Road in Bourbonnais in line for needed improvements

BOURBONNAIS — The village of Bourbonnais is experiencing growing pains when it comes to traffic flow on Career Center Road.

The trustees discussed it at this past week’s finance committee meeting.

Village engineer Mike Gingerich walked the trustees through a timeline to widen 1.5 miles of the road from Illinois Route 102 (Main Street NW) to Burns Road.

The preliminary cost for the project is $8.4 million with $4 million coming from federal funds. The village’s portion would be $4.4 million, according to documents the Gingerich presented to the board.

Construction would begin in 2026 with completion by fall 2028, Gingerich said.

“Career Center Road has been used more since the opening of the Bourbonnais Parkway exit off Interstate 57,” Mayor Paul Schore said.

From Bourbonnais Parkway to Burns Road has become a route to bypass the heavily-used North Convent Street.

In November 2018, the village opened Bourbonnais Parkway at I-57 exit 318. As a result, Career Center Road has experienced an influx of motorists along the current two-lane roadway, Lindy Casey, the village’s marketing and public engagement manager said in an email.

“A traffic study performed by the Bourbonnais Police Department in 2023 confirmed that over 100,000 motorists utilized the roadway over a 10-day period,” Casey said. “A separate study conducted confirmed that 59% of motorists were speeding over the posted limit of 40 miles per hour.”

Career Center Road is home to four schools, three public and one private, along with multiple places of worship, Casey said.

Working with Bourbonnais Elementary School District No. 53 in 2023, the village installed a new multi-use path for students to safely walk and bike to school in response to busing limits being reduced, Casey said.

Gingerich said the Kankakee Area Transportation Study Metropolitan Planning Organization ranked Career Center Road among the top five projects needing upgrading.

Currently two other projects in the top five — the rebuilding of Hobbie Avenue in Kankakee and the widening of the intersection of North Bradley Boulevard (Illinois Route 50) and Armour Road — are in progress, Gingerich said.

The Career Center Road project started this summer with a study by the village in order to secure federal funding administered by the MPO, according to documents Gingerich shared with the trustees.

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