Joel Cooley, owner of Cooley's Custom Framing in downtown Lake Zurich, can vividly remember the first time there was talk of widening Illinois Highway 22 in front of his two-story, Alpine-style store.

That's because downtown Lake Zurich would be the most affected by a plan being studied by regional transportation planners to widen Illinois 22 from McHenry County almost all the way to U.S. Highway 41 in Highland Park.

As proposed in the current plan, Illinois 22 would be widened from two lanes to four lanes from U.S. Highway 14 in Fox River Grove to Rand Road in Lake Zurich, from two lanes to six lanes from Rand Road to Milwaukee Avenue in Lincolnshire and from two lanes to four lanes from Milwaukee Avenue to U.S. 41.