As part of its strategic goals, the City of Batavia has been exploring opportunities to improve traffic flow and safety along Batavia Avenue, or Illinois Route 31. To assist with this goal, the city council authorized a contract with TransSystems Corporation to perform a Batavia Avenue Road Diet feasibility study in 2022. In March 2023, the city council approved a contract with the same company to perform phase 1 of the preliminary engineering study. The resolution and contract can be found in this Road Diet Update 3-23 PDF.
The U.S. Department of Transportation explains the road diet approach as narrowing travel lanes or shoulders or eliminating some of them to provide more space for pedestrians and bicyclists. A typical road diet consists of converting a four-lane roadway (two in each direction) to a three-lane (one in each direction plus a center turn lane) and adding sidewalks or bicycle lanes.
City staff along with TransSystems met with Illinois Department of Transportation staff in October 2021 to discuss the scope of the project and IDOT’s expectations from the feasibility study. After receiving feedback from IDOT, the feasibility study focused primarily on vehicular traffic from south of Fabyan Parkway to Mooseheart Road.
A draft of the feasibility study was presented to the city council during their April 12 Joint Committee of the Whole Meeting.
Updates to the Batavia Road Diet plans will be posted on this page.