Silver Creek Trail extension construction nears end; roads near Tri-Township Park may get PASER’d in 2026-27
Caption – One of the ADA sidewalk access points on the new Silver Creek Trail extension. This image was taken Nov. 7. (Ray Popkess photo)
By Charles Bolinger
Editor
Even though the temperatures on some recent mornings have been chilly to cold; construction continues unabated in and around Troy. Some highlights:
Residents who live along Riggin Road between Zenk and Bouse roads may want to attend a public informational meeting scheduled at city hall on Nov. 17. The meeting should happen at 6 p.m., ahead of the scheduled city council meeting at 6:30 p.m. Plans call for this section of Riggin to be reconstructed from an oil ‘n chip road to a 30-foot-wide concrete street with new curbs, gutters and sidewalks.
Over at Harvest Pointe, one contractor is installing water and sewer lines for the lots while another one is working on a detention pond plan for stormwater and other runoff and grading the outlot donated to the city. Harvest Pointe is a set of nine single-family lots off Staunton Road east of Kimberlin.
City officials plan to submit a Surface Transportation Plan (STP) application to fund a reconstruction of Bouse Road from Whitworth Drive to Formosa Road. The current oil ‘n chip road will become a 30-foot-wide concrete street with new curbs, gutters and sidewalks. The application is due by Feb. 4, 2026.
Design work has commenced on the second phase of the Troy-O’Fallon Sidewalk Extension. The work will construct an eight-foot-wide sidewalk along the west side of Troy-O’Fallon Road from Turtle Creek Drive to Meadowbrook/Fair Oaks Drive. City officials applied for a Transportation Alternative Program (TAP) grant for the work, and it is due by Feb. 7, 2026.
Spc. Patrick McDill Road, a planned road south from US 40 across from Creekside Drive, remains in the design phase but city officials hope to submit the plans to IDOT for review in November.
Silver Creek Trail extension
The eastward extension of the Silver Creek Trail to C.A. Henning Elementary School is nearly complete. All of the trail has been paved and Stutz has been working to add concrete ADA ramps at side streets during the week of Nov. 3. Stutz plans to be through with the concrete work later this month. The extension has added about 3,000 feet to the existing trail, which stretches west to Formosa Road and will enable Henning students to walk safely to and from school while enabling area residents to walk, bicycle, rollerblade and run along the trail. The next step will be to continue the trail east to Bethany Lane so that it will connect to Triad High School, which should happen sometime in 2026. City officials submitted a $250,000 Safe Routes to School Grant application for a connection to THS to the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) on Oct. 13. Awards should be announced in the spring.
Before that new trail extension can be laid, however, officials want to replace a two-inch water main along US 40 from Cheshire to Bethany with an eight-inch water main. Officials met with Public Works Director Rob Hancock to review the project and get feedback. The plan is to submit this to the Illinois EPA for permitting by the end of the year.
Street Maintenance/PASER projects
Previously, street patching, crack sealing, micro-surfacing and resurfacing projects have been done using a budget of at least $400,000 annually. For the current fiscal year, that amount was raised to $1 million to better address street conditions. The city’s fiscal year runs from May 1 to April 30. The revised fiscal year 2026 plan was to improve Olde Farm Road, Pinewood and Old Homestead under the PASER program. Officials are also working to add pavement sealer and city mill and overlay work to the FY26 budget. As for the new fiscal year, officials have targeted Sarah, Hickory and Wickliffe streets as two PASER projects for FY ‘26-27. If those are done, that would mean the entire area around the entrance to Tri-Township Park would be paved.
Business District/TIF projects
A downtown parking lot concept plan was presented to city officials on Oct. 20 and city staff painted the Spencer Park parking lot for 14 spaces on Oct. 30.
Before putting in new curbs and sidewalks on Market Street between Hickory and Dewey streets, city officials upgraded a water main. During water main design, they tentatively chose to replace the pipe culvert under 305 E. Market, pending budget approval. City officials coordinated with Ameren Illinois to replace utility poles. A final project development report was submitted to IDOT on Oct. 21. The project is on track for a bid letting in March or April 2027. The next step is property acquisition. The owner of 305 E. Market has verbally agreed to allow the city a permanent easement to replace the culvert under the road at his property.
Completed projects
The new left-turn lane on southbound O’Fallon-Troy Road at Country Lane is substantially complete. City officials hope that all of the project’s remaining punch list items are completed by the end of November.
Pavement patching on Old Homestead Drive is nearly done. It involved replacing a 500-foot section of concrete that had failed. The work is part of the city’s PASER program.
Padin Street Drainage Improvements, including a new v-gutter and a new sidewalk on the south side of the street, are substantially complete.
Replacement of the clay sewer from Collinsville Road to behind Waterman’s to support the Belle Rose multi-family development on the former RP Lumber site is substantially complete.
