It's been nearly five months since residents
packed into La Grange Village Hall in a resounding call for roadway and
pedestrian safety improvements in response the May 18 death of Countryside
mother Cari Cook, not just where she was killed by a passing motorist as she
crossed 47th Street at 8th Avenue -- but throughout the village.
Almost immediately, the village launched studies of that
stretch of state roadway, made additional handicapped-accessible curb cuts that
aligned previously mismatched sidewalks on both sides of the street, threw up
traffic safety bollards at key crossings and speed trailers in an effort to
reduce speed and wake up careless drivers.
Though the village expressed its ultimate interest in taking
over jurisdiction of 47th from East Avenue west to Willow Springs Road and
eventually softening its four-lane grid into a lane in each direction with a
center turn lane and enhanced parkways, the only gift the state has granted so
far was to quickly reduce speed in the high-traffic corridor to 30 from 35 mph.
But on Oct. 26, the Village Board unanimously waived the
formal bidding process and awarded a $28,060 construction contract to
McCook-based Meade Electric for the installation of enhanced pedestrian
crossing at 47th and 9th Avenue -- a block from where Cook died -- the first
leg of a village wide strategy to improve pedestrian safety on state roadway
corridors and a template for future possible upgrades elsewhere in town.
However, proposed improvements to the intersections of 52nd
Street and La Grange Road and 47th and Waiola Avenue at Waiola Park still have
to be given the green light by the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Proposed improvements will include additional advanced
warning signs, installing advanced warning "in-ground" lighted
pavement markings and dual flashing signpost-mounted pedestrian-activated
yellow beacons "to alert motorists (of pedestrians) crossing the
roadway," according to Public Works Director Ryan Gillingham.
"It's the first intersection to receive improvements
... and there are other intersections we've targeted," said Gillingham,
who noted the restriping of the road was also completed late last week and
added all pedestrians will have to do is "push a button" to engage the
yellow warning lights.
The description of the project was outlined at the behest of
Trustee Mike Horvath, who suggested residents viewing the meeting on
public-access LTTV need to learn about the project details since the contract
was only briefly noted as part of a consensus omnibus agenda.
Trustees previously signed off on a contract with
consultants KLOA Inc. to design the improvements and IDOT has already approved
permits for the work based on submitted plans and specifications.
The board also agreed to purchase needed materials in
advance from a firm called Traffic Control Protection, since some of them could
take up to two months or more to be delivered. Those include illuminated
pedestrian signs, flashing beacons, ground-mounted pavement flashers,
pedestrian push buttons for 47th and 9th.
Although the company proposed installation of the
ground-mounted pavement flashers in the amount of $11,575, village staff
solicited quotes from both Meade and La Grange-based Lyons Pinner Electric, who
have each installed the equipment on past projects. Yet while Pinner's $28,524
quote included a pavement marker installation for $1,510 cheaper than Meade,
the base quote of Meade was nearly $2,000 less and the total nearly $500 less
than Pinner.
In a related move, the board approved the launching
enforcement of amended intersection sight distance ordinance requirements,
which will give residents living on corners where vehicular and pedestrian
sight lines of oncoming traffic are blurred or otherwise blocked from view by
trees, shrubbery and fencing. The amended ordinance was also approved that
night.
When Horvath asked how the edict will be communicated to
residents and property owners, Village President Liz Asperger said it will be
handled on a case-by-case basis, through both complaints and "basic
outreach" by the Public Works Department.
Gillingham said residents are given 20 to 30 days to meet
compliance and "make suggested modifications" to whatever is causing
the obstructions on private property.
The code was last updated 13 years ago and was updated this
time to establish consistency with the most current (2004) published guidelines
of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
The crux of the change in the code is that the prior code
assumed vehicles in all directions must have the same intersection sight
distance and does not factor in the presence of a stop sign into the sight area
calculation, while the updated regulations assumes a motorist will stop at a
stop sign and look in both directions before proceeding into the intersection.
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