The long-awaited prairie path extension into Forest Park is on its way to reality.
The Illinois Prairie Path hosted its annual members meeting on Nov. 1 in Wheaton — where the middle of the 61 miles of crushed stone path sits. Among other updates, the group revealed plans for extending the prairie path past its eastern trailhead in Maywood to the CTA Blue Line terminal.
“I nickname it the East-West Highway because, once they get [the prairie path] connected to Forest Park and the Blue Line, you’ll be able to go anywhere in the city, all the way out to the Fox River in Aurora and Elgin, which is pretty impressive,” Ralph DiFebo, Forest Park resident and Illinois Prairie Path board member, told the Review ahead of the Nov. 1 meeting.
The Illinois Prairie Path’s eastern trailhead currently sits at 1st Avenue in Maywood. The extension plans for two crosswalks across 1st Avenue at Maybrook Drive, where the prairie path will pick up on the north side of the road. The sidewalk on Maybrook Drive will be widened to an eight-foot-wide paved path with two-feet shoulders on each side. Streetlights will move to the south side of the road, and additional lights would be added for pedestrians. The path will be built to the Des Plaines River and connect to an old, existing path on the south side of the Altenheim property that runs into the CTA parking lot for the Blue Line terminal.
Cook County’s Department of Transportation and Highways submitted the Phase I study for the extension plan to the Illinois Department of Transportation in October. Once the county gets feedback, there will be two more phases of engineering before construction.
Maybrook Drive is Cook County property, so DOTH is funding the three-tenths-of-a-mile-long path along the road. The county department has applied for IDOT’s Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program and will hear whether they get that money in the spring of 2027. DOTH is also evaluating other state and federal funding opportunities and, if all goes well, construction on the prairie path extension could start in two or three years.
Updates to the intersection at 1st Avenue and Maybrook Drive will be funded by IDOT — which will start construction on the nearby bridge over the Eisenhower Expressway at 1st Avenue as part of its five-year plan from 2027 to 2031. IDOT plans to add a crosswalk on the north and south sides of the 1st Avenue-Maybrook Drive intersection, plus a pedestrian button that triggers the light.
DiFebo said the old path east of the Des Plaines River is on CTA property but will likely need to be repaved.
The path to extension
DiFebo has been advocating to extend the prairie path, connecting it to Forest Park, for eight years, leading him to join the Illinois Prairie Path board nearly seven years ago.
“We don’t have one bike lane in Forest Park,” DiFebo told the Review. But connecting Forest Park to the prairie path allows bikers to travel from the far western suburbs into Chicago on public transit.
In a 2020 presentation, the Illinois Prairie Path board outlined three options for the extension. The one being pursued is the cheapest, estimated six years ago, to cost $64,000 to $188,000.
The next cheapest was estimated to cost $336,000 to $465,000 for a path that runs on the south side of Maybrook Drive, then crosses to the north side near the east end of the courthouse property. For $370,000 to $500,000, the priciest choice ran on the north side of Maybrook Drive, through a long stretch of parking spaces.
“The county has other ideas of how they want to use that. They haven’t disclosed how they’re going to use the parking lots, but they said they don’t want the bike path going through there,” DiFebo said. Cook County’s facilities management is in charge of that area.
Joe Seymour, a senior planner at DOTH, said at the Nov. 1 meeting that the path extension is part of Cook County’s first-ever bike plan, adopted in 2023, to aim for 96% of Cook County residents to live within a mile of a low-stress bicycle facility like a bike path. As part of the plan, the county identified 12 areas to further study bike network improvements, including the area just east of 1st Avenue.
Also in 2023, DOTH led a feasibility study for the Central Des Plaines River Trail, which laid out four paths that connected the prairie path at 1st Avenue to the Salt Creek River Trail in Brookfield and North Riverside. In early 2027, DOTH will begin a Phase I engineering study for the Central Des Plaines River Trail, which is also estimated to take two or three years to complete.
Marking history
Built in 1963, the Illinois Prairie Path runs along the old Chicago Aurora & Elgin electric railroad.
“It was the first rails to trails, if you consider design,” DiFebo said of the Illinois Prairie Path. But it was built after the government-funded Elroy-Sparta State Trail in Wisconsin.
DiFebo said the Illinois Prairie Path was the first trail built by volunteers — an effort led by May Watts, an arborist, writer and educator who once worked for the Morton Arboretum.
“When the railroad went defunct, she said, ‘This is a great way to connect communities,’” DiFebo said. “Right now, Forest Park is not connected to Prairie Path, but what is going to happen when we are?”
DeFibo said he aims to mark the prairie path’s history with a new trailhead
“I want to do something that’s going to be special at the entrance to demark what it is and the fact that Forest Park was a cornerstone to this railroad,” he said.