Flossmoor learned more this week about how it can make roads in the village safer, following a two-year study.
The Local Road Safety Plan presented Monday, June 20, to the village board is the result of a grant awarded to Flossmoor by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Representatives from Jacobs Engineering presented the results of the work and discussed what comes next.
“We are so excited to be talking about the Local Road Safety Plan,” Mayor Michelle Nelson said. “I feel like we’ve been waiting for this for a while, so it’s really exciting to be seeing a first draft of it.”
Tommy Myszka, of Jacobs Engineering, presented the plan, which he said is all about analyzing, identifying and prioritizing safety improvements. The plan does not represent any commitments to act on projects or represent policy, but it can help the village implement measures to reduce crashes that lead to fatalities or serious injuries. It uses crash data analysis, outreach activities and a steering committee to develop recommendations, according to the presentation.
In Flossmoor, the road safety review included local, county and state routes within the village’s boundaries. It found there were 1,333 crashes across 55 miles of public roadways and 299 intersections from 2015 to 2019. Roughly 370 of those involved “some type of injury,” according to Myszka, while five fatalities were recorded over those five years.
“That’s five people who didn’t get to go home to their family that night,” Myszka said. “The biggest goal of a local road safety plan is to bring those numbers down.”
The study prioritized areas by crashes and the number of public comments, weighting severe and fatal crashes more heavily. It wound up with a focus on the Central Business District, including Park Drive from Argyle Avenue to Sterling Avenue (intersection improvements recommended), and Sterling Avenue from Flossmoor Road to Wallace Drive (bicycle lanes). The nine areas highlighted by the study also included 189th Street and Springfield Avenue (pedestrian crossing, stop or yield signs), and 189th Street at Hamlin Avenue (right-turn geometrics, pedestrian crossing).
Among the policy and behavioral recommendations Jacobs Engineering made to the board were complete streets. That calls for roads that include crosswalks, stops, bike lanes, dedicated turn lanes and other features, rather than just the standard lanes and median lines.
“It is moving away from that vehicle-centric system, where we’d like to emphasize the facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians, as well, making it safe for them to use the system,” Myszka said. “Then, there are a handful of other policies that ultimately result in infrastructure changes but are driven by the policy being enacted.”
Trustee George Lofton said the report notes that three of the fatal crashes occurred where there was “questionable lighting.” Myszka said they also received comments from residents about lack of lighting in the neighborhoods or lighting concerns elsewhere in the village.
“That could be another improvement that not only helps visibility spotting pedestrians or bicyclists but also animals or something at the road in the night,” Myszka said.
Trustee Joni Bradley-Scott raised questions about how the village can change people’s behavior when the rules of the road are not being followed. Myszka talked about the possibility of establishing a police presence in certain areas so that daily users start to expect it. Then, they move to another area to create the same expectations there.
“Changing people’s behavior is very difficult,” Myszka said. “There are different types of outreach strategies.”
He also suggested certain neighborhood roads could use speed humps as temporary traffic calming devices. Some trustees expressed concerns about those, but Myszka said there are ways to highlight the humps to make them an effective deterrent to high speeds.
“I can tell you: Once you drive over those speed humps and bottom out your car, guess what you do next time?” Trustee Gary Daggett added. “You slow down. They’re very effective. Annoying, but effective.”
Myszka said the next steps are to implement the measures and evaluate the results. Flossmoor Village Manager Bridget Wachtel noted staff will be reviewing the full plan over the next few weeks and returning to the board in July for adoption of the plan.