Construction crews rolled onto the site along Illinois Route 251 this week, kicking off work on a more than $4 million shared-use path and pedestrian bridge project that Peru officials have been planning for years. Photos documented Wednesday show work underway near Liberty Village and Pizza Hut, where the elevated crossing will eventually rise above the busy state highway. City leaders expect the bridge to be finished by late summer 2027.
The project has been a long time coming. As Shaw Local reports, the pedestrian bridge will span Route 251 between Liberty Village and Pizza Hut, giving residents on the west side of the highway a direct route to retail destinations that have long required a less direct roadside walk. The urgency behind the project traces back to a gap identified by Peru City Engineer Eric Carls and engineering consultant Jim Clinard, who found that the nearest safe crossing point sat nearly a mile away from the area's dense mix of commercial and residential development, according to 1430 WCMY.
An 837-Foot Span Designed for Two-Way Traffic
The bridge itself will be a substantial piece of infrastructure. It's engineered as an 837-foot-long structure with a 10-foot-wide concrete path, per WALLS 102, intended for pedestrians and cyclists. Construction has been documented near the Illinois Valley Auto Group and Midtown Road, based on the seed story's photo captions.
Peru officials didn't design the bridge from scratch. The city modeled its Route 251 crossing after an existing pedestrian bridge over Interstate 80 in nearby Ottawa, Illinois, while adding its own touches, including integrated path lighting, safety fencing, and handrails meant to prevent objects from being dropped onto the highway below, the report notes. Engineering firm IMEG has documented Ottawa's own bridge over Interstate 80 as a similar example.
Grant Funding Ties Local Project to Statewide Program
Peru's bridge is being financed largely with outside help. The city secured a $3 million state grant through the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program after submitting its application in September 2022, the outlet reported at the time. That $3 million figure represents the maximum award allowed under the program; according to Streetsblog Chicago, ITEP grants are capped at $3 million per project.
Those ITEP dollars flow from a much larger pot of state money. The grants are funded through Illinois's $33.2 billion Rebuild Illinois capital program, enacted by state lawmakers in 2019 to expand multimodal travel options statewide, according to an AASHTO Journal report. It's billed as the first capital program in Illinois history dedicated to funding every mode of transportation, including bike and pedestrian routes. The project's total estimated cost has grown since the initial application, climbing from $3.7 million in 2022 to more than $4 million by the time construction began this September.
Part of a Larger Citywide Path Network
The bridge is the centerpiece of a much bigger vision for Peru. The crossing is part of a broader master plan to build roughly five miles of connected walking and biking paths across the city, linking Baker Lake, Veterans Park, OSF Peru hospital, local schools, and the public library, tying together neighborhoods on both sides of Route 251. That vision has already produced tangible results elsewhere in town: Peru reopened an upgraded 10-foot-wide concrete walking trail at Baker Lake this past April, replacing a roughly 30-year-old asphalt path with a wider, eight-to-10-foot path at a cost of nearly $300,000.
The current construction phase also includes vehicular changes tied to the pedestrian project. Plans call for a brand-new roadway connecting North Peoria Street to Plaza Drive near the commercial strip that includes Hy-Vee and Buffalo Wild Wings. When finished, the bridge and its surrounding path network are meant to close a safety gap that has separated senior residents at Liberty Village from everyday shopping and services just across a busy state highway.
