After 20 years of trying, the Route 66 Bike/Pedestrian Path will cross the railroad tracks at Chenoa, after the Illinois Commerce Commission signed off on the plan on May 7.
The state and McLean County government have appropriated money and trail advocates hope the work can finish by fall. It will include other sections of inactive Route 66 pavement in Chenoa.
“It gives us the ability to connect some of their community parks that are nearby, the swimming pool park and one of the lake parks to the trail. Ultimately, what it gives everyone the ability to do is to extend the trail to the north to Livingston County and beyond,” said Bill Wasson, vice president of the Friends of the Constitution Trail.
Wasson thanked the Genesee and Wyoming Railroad, which owns the Toledo, Peoria, and Western Railroad that runs east-west through Chenoa. McLean County government and the Illinois Department of Transportation also have approved the agreement.
Wasson said there already were plans to connect the remaining gaps between Towanda and Lexington [2.5 miles] and Lexington and Chenoa [a little under 5 miles]. The county is considering a contract with an engineering firm for that work.
Wasson said there's also significant historical and cultural value in seeing the trail extend north and south of McLean County.
“The longest stretch of remaining four-lane Route 66 extends from just south of Chenoa, where the trail will exist now, through most of Livingston County to Cayuga. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. This is in Illinois, and virtually across the country, one of the few places where you can experience more of what Route 66 looked like in the 1950s and '60s,” said Wasson.
In the early part of the century, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources [IDNR] put together a plan for a statewide Route 66 trail. A number of communities have built sections of it.
“We look forward to opportunities to help others connect all those links, and for McLean County to be in in the dead center of it,” said Wasson.
The longer-term dream is to connect St. Louis and Chicago. Wasson said half of that is in place, adding there are sections from St. Louis to Staunton, Illinois, the Springfield and Sangamon Valley area and beginning to stretch northward.
IDNR also has control of significant pieces of undeveloped right-of-way that could be built out.
Wasson said those elements are coming to life, noting it's about more than recreation.
“It also gives folks the ability to reconnect rural communities along the Route 66 corridor that have kind of been left behind by the interstate system that expanded far outside of town, and it lets us reconnect those communities,” he said.
The Friends of the Constitution Trail is planting dozens of trees that eventually will offer shade to cyclists, runners, and walkers. Wasson said 75 went in last weekend, and another 100 are planned for Chenoa and Fox Grove next weekend.
Volunteers can help and signups are at constitutiontrail.org.
