For decades, Northfield has fought off efforts to widen Willow Road, the east-west route that courses through the village’s leafy residential area as a two-lane thoroughfare.
And the village is not about to quit now.
“Northfield has been very determined. We feel that a (five)-lane highway would ruin the nature of our town,” said Village President Donald Whiteman.
Widening Willow and its western extension, Palatine Road, long has been on the Illinois Department of Transportation’s wish list. Daily traffic counts range from 66,000 on the west end of Willow at Milwaukee Avenue to 38,000 in downtown Northfield, according to IDOT.
IDOT’s engineers and consultants are finishing a plan to widen parts of Willow between the Edens Expressway and Milwaukee Avenue to five lanes, and to widen Palatine Road to six lanes from Milwaukee Avenue, west to Illinois Highway 53.
Hearings on the project were set for this summer. But because of concerns expressed principally by Northfield and Arlington Heights, the transportation agency has moved the hearings back, possibly to the winter.
Meanwhile, Northfield, a village of 5,256, has revved up its opposition machinery as never before. The village’s trustees have committed up to $500,000 this year and next to fight the proposed widening.
They have hired the Chicago public affairs firm of Thomas & Joyce Inc. to help develop strategies, build wider public support and produce a video to advance their case. And they have retained the Chicago Law firm of Winston and Strawn to analyze any environmental impact statement IDOT develops for the project.
“We do mean business on this,” Whiteman said.
The village also is playing a leading role in the Willow/Palatine Road Mayoral Task Force, made up of several municipalities along the route, including some, such as Palatine, Wheeling, Prospect Heights and Glenview, that are not as adamantly opposed to widening the road.
But Whiteman is the chairman, and he has rallied the support of five state representatives who empathize with Northfield’s concerns that a widened Willow Road would destroy the residential character of the village.
Northfield also argues that widening the road will make it less safe because it will carry more cars.
“Widening it to four lanes will in fact risk more pedestrians because traffic will go through there faster: Most injuries and accidents occur when cars get up some speed,” said Larry Horist, of Thomas & Joyce.
Not necessarily so, said Jarrod Cebulski, IDOT’s manager for the project.
“If we make it wider so more cars can get through an intersection, we can give more time on cross streets for pedestrian movement,” he said.
Now, said Cebulski, motorists on the two-lane stretch of Willow Road use the road’s shoulders to pass other cars, endangering schoolchildren.
In July, IDOT Secretary Kirk Brown met with state representatives and mayors and told them he would consider, or reconsider, other solutions, and that safety was the state’s main concern in widening both legs of the road. He told them that Willow/Palatine Road had annual accident rates that ranged from two to four times the rates on comparable state roads.
IDOT statistics show that from 1993 through 1995, the Willow leg of the road has had more accidents–973–than the Palatine stretch of the road–839–where speeds tend to run up to 20 miles an hour faster than in Northfield. Brown has agreed to let Northfield do its own analysis of the accident statistics.
Horist said that Brown’s priority on safety and not traffic flow or congestion relief cast a new light on the debate. There are other solutions to safety besides widening the road, Horist said.
A public safety expert will be hired to analyze the accident data, and Thomas & Joyce will supervise, Horist said.
