Some Woodridge motorists say they must wait for the traffic light to turn green five times before they can get through the intersection at 75th Street and Illinois Highway 53. Woodridge engineer Zill Khan hears these complaints occasionally and knows the intersection has “become a gridlock.”
What’s causing the holdup?
Until Aug. 30, Hobson Road, a major Woodridge east-west thoroughfare, is closed for bridge reconstruction over the east branch of the DuPage River.
“All the eastbound traffic on Hobson Road now uses 75th Street,” Khan said, explaining the backup. “Woodridge is an aggressive growth area in DuPage County.”
That may be one reason for traffic delays there. Here’s another:
Through June 30, Woodridge will be resurfacing 41 streets, or about 13 miles, Khan added. It’s a $750,000 roadway-maintenance project funded annually from state motor fuel tax revenues. The resurfacing includes sections of Woodridge Drive from Hobson east to Williams Drive, and Walnut Avenue from Forest Glen Parkway south to Crabtree Avenue.
In 1999, Khan said, Woodridge received about $714,248 in motor fuel tax revenues funds from the state for roadway maintenance.
In Downers Grove, Jeff Livergood, until recently the director of public works, said that the village began on June 1 its $1.8 million resurfacing project on 18.2 miles of streets. Livergood said he expected project completion about Aug. 31. One heavily traveled roadway slated for resurfacing is 59th Street, from Main Street east to Fairview Avenue.
“We maintain about this much every year,” he said. “Almost every street gets some form of surface maintenance every 8 to 10 years.”
Now through fall 2001, Downers Grove also is undergoing a $15 million central business district reconstruction project on Main Street, a primary north-south arterial, from Maple Avenue south to Prairie Street. Downers Grove maintains Main Street within the district.
As part of the project, the village has replaced traffic signals at four downtown intersections with versions that rely on cameras to detect vehicles. The village installed about 15 cameras in the business district. Funds for the $500,000 signal project came from the federal government and the village.
“If you hit all the lights in coordination,” Livergood said, “you can go through the (district) in less than a minute,” as opposed to, say, four minutes in the past. Of course, that won’t happen to every driver every time, he added, “because at some point the signals on Main Street must turn red.”
The project also includes replacement of the downtown’s utility infrastructure, including new water mains and storm and sanitary sewers.
“We have delays during rush hour, but not so that the level of service is unacceptable,” Livergood said. “In Downers Grove, the major delay is the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, a heavily traveled commuter and freight line that runs east-west through the village.”
Livergood estimates the Burlington rarely blocks traffic at any of six crossings for more than about five minutes.
Residents who identify traffic problems will find satisfaction in knowing the village tries to work with them on solutions.
In 1997, for example, Downers Grove resident Mark Dziedzic and about 30 of his Washington Street neighbors asked Livergood to measure the neighborhood’s traffic. Measurements showed as many as 1,500 vehicles passed Dziedzic’s house within a 24-hour period, compared with an average of about 800 vehicles on other Downers Grove residential streets.
The “inappropriate” traffic, by village categorization, cut through Dziedzic’s neighborhood before entering or after leaving Good Samaritan Hospital, Dziedzic said. “That traffic should use the major feeder, not residential streets,” he said, adding that nearby 39th Street can better accommodate traffic volume.
After appropriate study, Livergood said, the village’s parking and traffic commission and the Downers Grove Village Council voted on restrictions that have reduced Washington Street’s average traffic to about 850 vehicles a day.
In 1999, the village posted a “turn-only” sign at the hospital’s 39th Street driveway, sending drivers from the hospital onto 39th Street rather than Washington–and Dziedzic’s neighborhood. In addition, no vehicles may turn north onto Washington from Ogden Avenue between 6 and 9 a.m.
“Working with Jeff (Livergood) was easy,” Dziedzic said, especially since Livergood met with the Washington Street neighbors in Dziedzic’s back yard.
“Traffic congestion has many people concerned. It’s a situation of greater demand than supply,” said Siim Soot, executive director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Peak periods are 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m. “You have a large number of vehicles coming together,” Soot said, but “we can’t continue to expand the supply” of roads.
Downers Grove Planning Services Director Ken Rathje agrees.
“We have a fairly mature roadway system,” he said, citing Interstate Highways 355 and 88 that intersect in Downers Grove. “But some people would still prefer not to have any traffic on the streets they want to drive on.”
Soot said maintenance or coordination problems sometimes occur when various government agencies build or maintain roadways that cross jurisdictions. But Livergood said, “The various jurisdictions work well together in Downers Grove.”
Khan echoed Livergood’s sentiment. In fact, Woodridge maintains 75th Street and the trees along it between Illinois Highway 53 east to Lemont Road. That’s an area under DuPage County jurisdiction, but Woodridge asked the county whether it could maintain that parkway. For its extra work, Khan said, Woodridge receives about $8,150 annually from the county.
As new employees commute to work in Woodridge and Downers Grove, their vehicles will add to the villages’ traffic. This fall, for example, up to 700 employees will work at Allstate Corp.’s new building at 840 S. Frontage Road in Waterfall Glen, a Woodridge business park.
Morey Corp. recently moved its 300 employees to its new custom electronics and manufacturing assembly facility at Internationale Centre, a Woodridge commercial park immediately south of the intersection of I-355 and I-55.
Also at the Internationale Centre, organic research and testing company Medichem expects about 250 employees by mid-November at 2501 Davey Rd. Corporate Express office supply distributors anticipate about 300 workers at 1301 Internationale Pkwy.
Staci Hulseberg, Woodridge planning and development director, anticipates 14 more buildings will join the current 35 in the Internationale Centre. The existing structures accommodate 57 businesses.
“We currently have 10,000 jobs in the village of Woodridge and 4,700 at Internationale Centre alone,” she said. “We need lots of people” to work now and in the future.
By 2020, Hulseberg said, the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission expects Woodridge jobs will total 24,000.
Though jobs in Downers Grove totaled 40,842 in 1990, that number is projected to grow to 63,529 by 2020, according to Marc Thomas, senior planning analyst with the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission.
In 1999, Downers Grove added 170 businesses, said Barbara Wysocki, executive director of the Downers Grove Chamber of Commerce. Today, 60 employees work at the new Burpee Gardens, 1100 W. Ogden Ave., and Good Samaritan Health and Wellness Center employs 85 workers at 3551 Highland Ave.
Commuters may travel along Woodridge and Downers Grove streets and highways faster with dynamic route guidance, a computerized system Soot believes could benefit drivers within this decade.
With a computer in each commuter’s trunk, such a guidance system would send to a central computer information on traffic conditions. Then the central computer would suggest travel alternatives enabling commuters to bypass full-capacity arterials in favor of clearer routes that offer the shortest travel time.
“In time we will have it,” Soot said. “It’s a matter of having the costs come down and the resources available for a computer, hardware and people to maintain a system like this.”
Until then, Downers Grove and Woodridge commuters will no doubt stick to the major roadways. Livergood said the prominent east-west routes in Downers Grove are Butterfield Road, 31st Street, Ogden Avenue, 75th Street, 63rd Street, and 55th Street, all of which ae maintained by the DuPage County Transportation Department or the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Sections of Main Street are under Downers Grove jurisdiction or DuPage County jurisdiction. DuPage County and IDOT also maintain Belmont Road, another major north-south roadway through Downers Grove.
Khan said the major east-west roads in Woodridge are Hobson Road, 75th Street and 87th Street, all of which DuPage County maintains. Woodridge maintains Internationale Parkway, another major east-west route.
Primary Woodridge north-south routes are Illinois 53, maintained by IDOT, and Lemont Road, which DuPage County maintains. Woodridge maintains two sections of Woodward Avenue, another north-south Street south to Davey Road. DuPage County maintains other sections of Woodward Avenue in Woodridge.
For all the talk of traffic gridlock, some employees have it easy. Rathje lives and works in Downers Grove and his total travel time is about “five minutes–on a bad day.”
