About 75 La Grange Park residents turned out Wednesday to give their input on the village’s Traffic Safety Improvement Project, and lobby for safety improvements on La Grange Road.
The village held an open house specifically targeting the stretch of La Grange Road from Brewster Avenue north to 31st Street. The Illinois Department of Transportation owns the road and any changes would require its approval.
The village partnered with Kimley-Horne and Associates for preliminary engineering plans.
“They come up with this plan and the main focus is safety on La Grange Road from Homestead to Woodlawn. Safety is number one,” Village President James Discipio said.
Discipio said the village would like to see the speed limit reduced by 5 mph to be consistent with La Grange and Countryside, and also wants better access for emergency vehicles off of Woodlawn onto La Grange Road.
Kimley-Horne produced several viewing stations focusing on preliminary design concepts under consideration:
- Replacing the existing striped median at the Homestead-La Grange Road intersection with a raised landscaped median to provide a pedestrian refuge.
- Exploring the possibility of adjusting the traffic light at Homestead and La Grange Road with a leading pedestrian interval to give pedestrians a head start when crossing.
- The possibility of installing a traffic signal at La Grange Road and Woodlawn to improve pedestrian safety for residents crossing to Memorial Park.
- Widening La Grange Road between Homestead and Woodlawn to accommodate the raised medians.
But the main topic was the dangers posed by speeding on La Grange Road and the possibility of lowering the speed limit.
La Grange Park petitioned IDOT to lower the speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph, submitting crash data July 17, 2024, that showed 12 vehicle accidents, one pedestrian accident and one involving a bicycle between 2017 and 2021 at La Grange Road and Homestead Avenue.
Further north, at La Grange Road and Woodlawn Avenue, there were 35 vehicle accidents and two pedestrian accidents in the same time period, the data show.
La Grange Road is already the busiest roadway in the village, and includes the Village Market Shopping Center, Plymouth Place Senior Living, the La Grange Park Public Library, Memorial Park and nearby entities, such as Village Hall, Jewel-Osco and Homestead Apartments.
Traffic moving north from La Grange, with its 25 mph speed limit, tended to speed up while traffic coming south from Westchester often failed to slow from the 40 mph limit there, officials said.
New additions to the area, including Andy’s Frozen Custard and Aldi, have been popular with residents and made traffic congestion even worse, officials said.
But IDOT rejected any decrease in speed limit formally requested, pointing to its own study concluding the 30 mph limit was appropriate, citing a 94% anticipated speed limit violation rate, meaning the problem was enforcement.
One resident, Melanie Dawe, spoke out about safety on La Grange Road.
“The speed limit, the light and really the whole traffic flow needs to be made safer,” Dawe said.
Bonnie Wedster agreed.
“I walk a lot and bike a lot,” she said. “I go to Trader Joe’s to shop, but I’m not going to bike any where close to La Grange Road. … People go way too fast on La Grange Road. It’s not safe for anybody that’s not in a car.”
Tom Land lives directly across La Grange Road from Andy’s Custard and stressed that whatever the speed lmit was, better enforcement was needed.
“We really don’t see the amount of enforcement we think there should be,” Land said. “You can get up at 7 a.m. and see semi-trucks and trucks full of gravel doing 45-50 mph down La Grange Road. That continues throughout the day and into the night when people are peeling out of Andy’s and essentially drag racing down La Grange Road.”
Trustee Mike Sheehan said he was impressed with the residents comments, and noted a planned trip April 29 to the state Capitol by Discipio, Village Manager Julia Cedillo and Trustee Bob Lautner to lobby IDOT for the speed limit reduction.
“Judging from the turnout there’s a lot of interest,” Sheehan said. “I know they’re working on going down to Springfield next week, the slogan is ‘take five’ to try and get IDOT to lower the speed limit 5 mph. We have to make this area more pedestrian friendly.”
Discipio stressed any change in that stretch of La Grange Road was up to IDOT.
“It’s their road,” he said. “We can’t do anything without IDOT’s approval.”
More information on the Traffic Safety Improvement Project can be found at lagrangepark.org.
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
