Oak Brook has a new ordinance that was approved by the Village Board Nov. 9 to address safety concerns related to pedestrians in and about active traffic lanes.
The ordinance specifically includes addressing the danger motor vehicles pose to pedestrians who walk, sit and stand on highways and roadways.
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“The Pedestrians in the Roadway ordinance passed by the Village Board is not intended to impact any one group in a manner disproportional to another,” Village Manager Greg Summers said. “The ordinance strictly addresses the conflict inherent in mixing pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Whenever a pedestrian is outside of a designated crossing, the possibility for disaster arises.”
Summers said that in 2021, the Illinois Department of Transportation reported 112 vehicle crashes in DuPage County involving pedestrians, which resulted in seven fatalities and many other injuries.
“Even more alarming, those same statistics show that 2,641 vehicle crashes in Cook County involved pedestrians, resulting in 110 fatalities,” he said. “At the same time, carjackings have risen 38% from 2020 to 2021. The obvious need to separate pedestrians and vehicles to ensure everyone’s safety is paramount.”
Summers said the ordinance contains specific exemptions for a pedestrian approaching a curbside vehicle for the purpose of entering that vehicle with the driver’s consent, cases of emergency, construction and utility workers, and in residential subdivisions where sidewalks do not exist.
“It is important to note that prohibitions of the ordinance pertain specifically to the pavement area of the street intended for vehicular traffic,” Summers said. “This does not include the median or curbside areas where those activities can still be safely carried out, apart from vehicular traffic.”
An additional exception to the ordinance is in place for low-speed residential streets on which no sidewalk is present, which allows pedestrians to enter into a roadway for otherwise lawful purposes.
The process of creating and adopting the new ordinance dates back to a June 14, 2022 Village Board meeting at which the board directed staff and the village attorney to collaborate on a draft ordinance addressing safety concerns of pedestrians in the roadway.
Following that direction, a draft ordinance was compiled via collaboration between the village attorney, village manager, and police chief designed to not only prevent injuries and death that could occur as a result of a motor vehicle colliding with a pedestrian, but also to protect motorists from carjacking threats by maintaining separation between a potential perpetrator and a victim’s vehicle, Police Chief Brian Strockis said.
He said the part about carjackings was added to help address those crimes across the country, which have been on the rise, including tripling in Chicago and increasing 38% in Cook County from 2020 to 2021.
Chuck Fieldman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.