Fixes — still in planning phase — coming to Hibbard Road in Wilmette

Wilmette and county officials want to know: What could a reimagined Hibbard Road look like?

To answer that question, members of the Village’s engineering department, along with representatives from the Cook County Department of Transportation, held an open house on Thursday evening, April 3, where they presented ideas on possible renovations to the roadway.

The Village is planning on improving Hibbard Road, from Skokie Boulevard to Old Glenview Road, in a project that could begin around 2028 and be completed in 2030.

Ron Milanesio, project engineer with the Village of Wilmette, said the project is looking to address issues that residents identified in a community survey from last year as the most urgent.

“From that survey, there is a lot of interest in sidewalk connectivity,” he said. “There’s a lot of gaps in the sidewalk network (along Hibbard).”

Other issues included accommodations for bicyclists and pedestrians and drainage concerns.

Safety will also be addressed, according to information provided at the open house, including the intersection at Skokie Boulevard, which also has traffic coming from nearby Washington Avenue.

According to data presented, 37 property damage crashes have occurred on Hibbard Road from 2018-2022, with 16 of those happening at the Hibbard and Skokie intersection.

Milanesio said the project is currently in Phase 1, which includes gathering feedback from the community on proposed alternatives to address the concerns that residents have, which was the purpose of Thursday’s open house.

Some proposed ideas include the addition of a multi-use side path; parking spaces along Hibbard, either along one or both sides of the street; and the addition of bicycle lanes, both with parking and without parking.

Milanesio said the feedback gathered from Thursday’s meeting will help shape the plans going forward by narrowing down which alternatives are preferred by residents and which ones aren’t.

“And then once we get all that, we’ll prepare a report, submit it to (the Illinois Department of Transportation), and once that’s approved we can start Phase 2,” he said, which includes preparing detailed designs.

There will then be another public meeting where the narrowed-down alternatives will be presented and residents will have a chance to offer more feedback.

Milanesio added that much of the feedback received during Thursday’s open house was positive.

A jurisdictional transfer is another change to Hibbard that may happen at the conclusion of the project. Currently, Hibbard Road is maintained by Cook County, but Milanesio said once the project is done, the Village plans on taking ownership of the road.

He added that Phase 1 of the project is being funded by an Invest in Cook grant.

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