To the many Skokie residents concerned about traffic safety near our schools, I wanted to point out that there have been some recent developments which are going to be discussed at public meetings this week (Aug 6 and Aug 8), which I do not believe have been well advertised – especially considering the general citizen reaction to the death of Carter Vo. As such, I would encourage you all to attend both the Village of Skokie Board of Trustees meeting tonight (Aug 6) and/or the School Safety Task Force Meeting on Aug 8.
First of all – some background: There is a School Traffic Safety Task Force composed of elected Village of Skokie officials, Village of Skokie staff, District 73.5 staff, and other District 73.5 representatives. A meeting was held on July 19 to listen to recommendations made by Gewalt-Hamilton Associates (GHA). The meeting minutes are posted on the Village of Skokie web site in the Skokie News section (right side of the front page in the area with a greenish background) or here:
Based on GHA’s recommendations, the committee is recommending that a new stop-light be placed at the intersection of Main Street and Central Park Avenue. In addition, pedestrian traffic will be diverted to this intersection and some other traffic patterns will be modified.
What was discussed at the July 19 meeting was that this information would be presented to the Village of Skokie board of Trustees at their Aug 6 meeting (since the cost of a new stop-light is not insignificant). The meeting minutes from the July 19 task force meeting indicate that residents will have the opportunity to comment on their proposals at this Aug 6 meeting – however, it does not appear on the agenda. So, if you are concerned about this issue, I would recommend that you either email the Village TODAY (info@skokie.org) with your concerns or attend the regular Board of Trustees Meeting this evening.
You MAY have one other opportunity to provide input – at the next task force meeting on August 8 (presumably in the evening at Village Hall, however, that has not been publically announced). I say “may” because at the last task force meeting, most of the recommendations were already approved by the committee before non-committee attendees were allowed the opportunity to speak. For instance, one of the committee members asked why GHA had not studied Radar Signs/Driver Feedback signs (like Evanston has near two of its schools). The GHA representative said that he was not well-versed in the advantages/disadvantages of Radar Signs and then started talking about he believed they would not be effective. Much of what the GHA representative said disagreed with what I had found and had intended to present at the meeting (Radar Signs are indeed very effective and are highly recommended by both citizens and traffic enforcement). However, I was not given an opportunity to present my results other than to hand around a presentation that I had put together. So, if I had not put together some kind of documentation, there would have been no opportunity to dispute the un-documented/un-substantiated statements from the “traffic expert” from GHA regarding radar signs.
I am not saying that the overall recommendations of GHA are not the best solutions for improving traffic safety near Middleton School. All I am trying to say is that there have been very few opportunities for community input, and that the “traffic experts” from GHA have not considered all of the options. In addition to not studying radar signs, GHA did not mention speed cameras in their report - despite this being mentioned by task force committee members at the July 19 meeting and by several residents at the Skokie Voice public safety forum on June 20. There may be other good ideas that residents have which could also improve traffic safety near our schools – but which have not been considered.
Disclosure: If you haven’t already noticed, I do not advocate relying solely on Gewalt-Hamilton Associates as “traffic experts” and simply following their recommendations. During the Road Diet, many of the results from their models were not replicated during the test, and they made statements which were not justified by and in many cases conflicted with their own data. So far, there have been at least two specific traffic calming mechanisms that have been proposed by a minimum of two different residents at task force committee meetings – yet they have not been studied by Gewalt-Hamilton Associates. My research into traffic signals indicates, that it may help in providing a safer opportunity for pedestrians to cross, but it will not reduce traffic speeds and may actually increase traffic speeds - see for instance New York City Dept. of Transportation at:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/faqs/faqs_signals.shtml
While a traffic light at the intersection of Central Park Avenue and Main Street as has been recommended by the task force committee may indeed be the best solution for improving pedestrian safety, I would encourage you to evaluate it yourselves instead of only relying on GHA as a “traffic expert”.
So, if you are concerned about traffic safety in our community and in particular around our schools, I recommend that you voice your opinion either via email to info@skokie.org or at the Village Board of Trustees meeting tonight, Aug 6, and/or attend the task force meeting on Aug 8. Otherwise, you may not have another opportunity before the Village of Skokie implements some potentially significant and costly changes to traffic not only near Middleton, but around all of our schools.
Regarding which schools they are looking at - one of the issues is that in order to have productive discussions, the task force/committee/commission really has to have some direct interaction/input from the school district, since there are other changes to be made that are not infrastructure based (like teaching parents where to safely drop their kids off, where the best place is for crossing guards, etc). Looking back, if this task force had just one school official and one parent from each district the group would have ballooned to a size that couldn't have reasonably been productive. So, I can understand why this task force was just 73.5. I really hope that once it gets folded into the public safety com, that a focus on pedestrian safety remains. Maybe a specific focus like Evanston has?
I think the issue here is cost to the school district. I believe there is some kind of cost-share between the school district and Skokie. So, if that is true, then it is up to the school district whether to pay for police or resident crossing guards. (But yes, then we need to talk with the Village to see why they pay for police at Village Hall but not at the schools).
"I really hope that once it gets folded into the public safety com, that a focus on pedestrian safety remains. Maybe a specific focus like Evanston has?" It's also my understanding that the school superintendents in Skokie are requesting a more regular on-going traffic safety dialogue with the village. Something where they would get together once or twice a year to talk about current issues rather than forming a task force when something happens.
At the forum, you're right, the front door was locked as it usually is in the summer. I was posted at the front door that evening letting people in. At the time the forum started, someone else took my place at the front door and I went to the mp room. Why you could not get in I have no idea, but on behalf of the school, my apologies. The school deliberately posted people there to open the doors and you should have been able to get in.
Shortly after school let out, the superintendent sent an email inviting all of 73.5 to brainstorm at McCracken. Sh is trying to include everyone. I arrived at the meeting 20 minutes late, but had no problem getting into the building. I'm sorry you had difficulty. It's so easy to arm-chair quarterback, criticize and point of deficiencies. Please, roll up your sleeves and join in making our community safer for all of its inhabitants. MKP
It will be very helpful to have the information about the times and places of future meetings that was given above to increase the amount of participation. Hopefully, once everyone knows where and when to go, there will be fewer "arm-chair quarterbacks!"
According to the meeting minutes from the last Task Force meeting (which are posted on the Skokie.org website), "It is anticipated the Village Board will discuss and decide upon this plan at the August 20 meeting". The specifics of the plan are in the meeting minutes (traffic signal, speed limit reductions, pedestrian crossing at Central Park, etc). The next Task force meeting is scheduled for October 3 at 7pm at Village Hall.
1) Main Street is classified as a collector street. If you slow traffic down too much on it through speed limits, stop signs, traffic lights, etc, then you will likely shift the traffic to the neighboring truly residential streets. Studies say they won't go all the way up to Dempster or Oakton, instead they will "speed" on Lee or Madison. 2) The speed limit in the area of McCracken is normally 30. The actual MEASURED AVERAGE speeds were 29 or 30. Standard traffic design says that if 85% of traffic is going less than 5mph over the speed limit, you have designed your road correctly for the speed limit you posted. In this case the MEASURED 85% traffic is below 35 (don't have the number off the top of my head). 3) HOWEVER, PEOPLE DO SPEED THROUGH THE SCHOOL ZONES. So, that is one area that needs to be addressed.
However, I do not personally believe that lowering the speed limit will help at all. The traffic experts and police officers said that people go the speed they are comfortable with, independent of posted speed limit. In order to slow the traffic down you need either more enforcement, or better traffic design. (Note: the divided road, on-street parking, landscaped median, etc. all actually HELP to slow traffic down.)
They'll put in the traffic light and rear end collisions will double. Side street (as well as alley) traffic will increase as people cut through to get around the light. And I guess all of the commercial properties which line both sides of Main St. from Trumbull East to McCormick are just my imagination ( I won't even mention what's going on 1 block South at Madison and Kimball).
Vicki said: "in your miserable life." Then Vicki said: "Needless name calling certainly not the way to manage the situation" Tsk, tsk, tsk. Someone needs to take their own medicine. (✌ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞
"Citizens are invited to comment on the above plan via e-mail at info@skokie.org or in person at the Village Board Meeting of August 20, 8 p.m. at Skokie Village Hall. It is anticipated the Village Board will discuss and decide upon this plan at the August 20 meeting." If you support the task force's recommendation then make your voice heard. if you oppose it, stfu...lol! no really, whatever your viewpoint, tell the village. spouting off on patch, however satisfying, does not matter.
No notices are ever sent to the community at large. It should be mentioned that some teachers and parents are among the worst traffic offenders. If you don't think so, you should watch them when they have completed work or picked up someone. Don't get in their way
"Overall more needs to be done throughout the entire village to make it a more pedestrian friendly community. " Why? No we don't.
Now attracting businesses to the village to reignite it's retail and industrial heyday without offering a 10-20 year TIF. That it has a problem with (See Dempster street, Lockwood East to McCormick). New traffic lights or stop signs on already sleepy thoroughfares is not going to do anything to fix that. And that is what they should be focusing on instead of having nonsense like this brought to them. Because if the retail or industrial tax base doesn't improve they will eventually have to give in and raise property taxes to cover the rising costs of everything. Including the already issued bonds and fallout from the Wall Street mortgage fraud which led to a ridiculous doubling of property values that have now fallen backwards 10 years. And don't expect that to change anytime soon unless wages go up. We've hit a breaking point of what US consumers can afford and 9% of them aren't even working or in the game.