47 Plus Heading
Illinois 47 - Plans and gaps | Local alternatives to Prairie Parkway | Highways in the News | Our Mission
A coalition to promote improvements to Illinois 47 and other local roads between I-80 and I-88 in Kane, Kendall, and Grundy counties.

Coalition Members

Center for Neighborhood Technology

Citizens Against the Sprawlway

Environmental Law and Policy Center

Friends of the Fox River

Kendall Citizens for Farmland Protection

Natural Resources Defense Council

Nettle Creek Watershed Conservancy

Openlands

Prairie Rivers Network

Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club


Join our coalition - send an e-mail to info@47plus.org

47+ Seeks Illinois 47 Study


The 47+ coalition has asked IDOT to reopen its Prairie Parkway environmental impact study to include Illinois 47 from I-80 to I-88 as the first step in tapping federal funds for a "north-south connector" between the two interstates.
Read the letter to IDOT (pdf format)

Take Action:

The decision on funding for Illinois 47 and/or the Prairie Parkway will be made in Springfield as the legislature decides how to spend our scarce highway tax dollars.

$207 million in federal dollars is already "earmarked" for a "north-south connector between I-80 and I-88" -- IDOT wants to spend it on a 5 mile segment of the Prairie Parkway between Illinois 71 and US 34.  But it could instead tap that money for improving Illinois 47.

Write or e-mail your legislators,telling them NOT to fund the Prairie Parkway and to put the tax money into improving Illinois 47 and other area roads.

[ Find your Illinois elected officials here.  Look for "My Elected Officials" ]

Choosing Illinois 47 and other local road improvements over the Prairie Parkway means:

Avoiding agricultural impacts:

Loss of 2560 acres of farmland, affecting 189 farms.  Nine farm residences would be lost and farm buldings would be lost on another 52 farms. 

Avoiding environmental impacts:

The proposed Prairie Parkway crosses streams and tributaries at least 83 times, destroys 58 acres of forests, and could impact several threatened and endangered species.   It would degrade pristine stretches of Big Rock Creek and Aux Sable Creek as well as the Fox River.

Avoiding community impacts:

We help protect rural areas of Kane and Kendall counties from accelerating sprawl.  IDOT estimates that an additional 5,400 acres of farmland will be lost to induced development caused by the Prairie Parkway.

We save the villages of Big Rock and Kaneville, threatened with unwanted growth and congestion as the Prairie Parkway cuts a swath through the community.

Avoiding financial impacts:

The $1 billion cost of the proposed Prairie Parkway can be diverted to other important transportation projects, projects that might not be funded because of the enormous cost of the Prairie Parkway.  Our state and federal tax dollars should be invested in sensible improvements and expansion of the existing highway network.