Parking restrictions near Glenview’s Avoca West Elementary School may have helped ease traffic flow during school dropoff times, but further changes to some of the roadsides around the school, where a number of students walk to campus, could be coming in future years – good news for parents who say the initial changes haven’t gone far enough.
The lack of sidewalks near Avoca West, attended by some 470 children in kindergarten through fifth grades, has become a sore spot for parents worried about safety.
According to Glenview village records, the neighborhood near the school – bounded roughly by Harms Road, Lake Avenue, Wilmette Avenue and the ComEd/Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way – was developed between 1954 and 1960, according to the standards of that time. That meant no sidewalks were installed.
But last year, following a petition by Glenview and Wilmette residents to improve pedestrian and cycling conditions on both sides of the Lake Avenue/Edens Expressway, both villages took steps to improve safety conditions that included adding parking restrictions and installing signs alerting drivers as they enter the school zone.
In Glenview, the Village Board in August approved new parking restrictions for school drop-off and pickup zones during rush hours, and installed new signs banning parking on parts of Sherwood Drive during busy school dropoff/pickup times.
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Joe Kenney, Glenview’s community development director, said police have been keeping a close watch on those areas during school rush hours since the academic year began. He said he has heard no complaints since August, when the Village Board approved those restrictions.
On the Wilmette side of the Edens, new pedestrian signs were erected at Lake and Laramie avenues, along with new school zone signage on Illinois Road near Marie Murphy School. Village officials also worked with the Illinois Department of Transportation to improve signage on the Lake Avenue overpass across the Edens Expressway “to bring more awareness to drivers that there are pedestrian crossings” at the entry and exit ramps there, said Brigitte Berger, the village’s engineering and public works director.
Kevin Jauch, superintendent of Avoca School District 37, said the parking restrictions have made a positive difference, especially at the corner of Sherwood and Beech near Avoca West, where large buses had difficulty making turns. Glenview also painted a 20 mph zone on Sherwood and placed a temporary mobile radar post there, which has helped tame traffic, Jauch said.
“When you drive down the street and you see that, your speedometer is suddenly much more public,” he said. “I think that does tend to slow people down.”
However, Avoca West parent Dorothy Elfring said the area is still too dangerous for parents walking their children to school or families walking to nearby shopping centers. Although her two children, who are in kindergarten and second grade, haven’t been in a near-miss situation while walking in the street, “you get worried because it’s so unpredictable.”
“It’s kind of a prime walking area,” she said.
A neighborhood vote last summer resulted in a 7-6 tally favoring sidewalks along Sherwood Drive, but that fell short of the 2/3 majority Glenview requires to install sidewalks on the village’s tab. Kenney said he hasn’t heard from residents since that result was announced in September, but “the residents can always pursue another initiative when they want.”
Elfring said pro-sidewalk parents will do so ahead of a $1.1 million sewer, water main and road reconstruction project scheduled for Sherwood in 2018.
But not everybody favors adding more sidewalks, including residents who think unsightly concrete pathways will lower property values or actually make children less safe by putting them closer to vehicles backing out of garages. At a meeting last April, one resident argued that sidewalks would allow burglars “to peer into our living rooms.”
A July 2015 traffic study outlined long-term recommendations for Glenview and Wilmette, including that the villages work together to construct a new pedestrian and cycling bridge over the Edens. It also said Glenview should provide new pedestrian access to Avoca West from the east.
Meanwhile, in Wilmette, the village will consider adopting a new sidewalk policy early this year. The policy was endorsed by the village’s Municipal Services Committee in November. The village also adopted a “Complete Streets” policy last year that governs street design and reconstruction; such policies generally require that streets be designed for pedestrians, bicyclists and public transit in as well as cars.
“In the future when we look at making improvements to Lake Avenue and Skokie Boulevard, we’ll have many opportunities to change the design and make it more pedestrian-friendly,” Berger said.
Berger said Wilmette was awarded a federal Surface Transportation Program grant in June to modernize traffic signals and ensure crosswalks are ADA-compliant and as short as possible at and near the Lake/Skokie intersection.
The grant covers 70 percent, or $770,000 of the $1.1 million project, leaving local governments to cover the balance – a task for IDOT and Cook County since they own the roads, Berger said. Work is scheduled to begin in 2019 if that local match is covered, she added.
Jon Davis is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.