Parking will be not be allowed on a street near Western Avenue School that has turned into a traffic bottleneck, especially during student drop-off and pick-up schedules. Flossmoor Village Board members Monday unanimously voted to completely remove on-street parking from Vardon Lane between Western Avenue and Gardner Road.
parking on a section of Vardon Lane to address
traffic congestion issues near Western Avenue School.
(Photo by Tom Houlihan/H-F Chronicle)
Parking will be not be allowed on a street near Western Avenue School that has turned into a traffic bottleneck, especially during student drop-off and pick-up schedules.
Flossmoor Village Board members Monday unanimously voted to completely remove on-street parking from Vardon Lane between Western Avenue and Gardner Road.
Deputy Police Chief Tod Kamleiter told the board that Vardon – which dead-ends into Western across the street from the school – is unusually narrow. The intersection of Western and Vardon is also an extremely busy school crossing point, he said.
a larger view of the area.
Currently, parking is prohibited on the north side of Vardon between Western and Gardner. However it is allowed on the south side of the street, except during the hours of 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. That time restriction was put in place to prohibit parents from parking on Vardon while they are waiting to pick up their children.
“Due to the narrow street, cars parked along the south side only allow for westbound traffic on Vardon Lane up to its intersection with Western Avenue,” Kamleiter said in a memo to the board. “With an active westbound traffic lane and as few as just one car parked on the south side of the street, eastbound traffic on Vardon Lane is not possible.”
This causes traffic to back up on both directions of Western at the Vardon intersection, he said.
Kamleiter said he spoke with three residents who live on the one-block stretch of Vardon and they are all in favor of restricting parking on both sides of the street on a full-time basis.
Following the board’s approval, new signs will be posted on Vardon informing drivers about the parking prohibition.
