Weary Highland Park residents living near U.S. Route 41 say they have been trying for years to get the Illinois Department of Transportation to make changes to decrease noise produced by a set of rumble strips that cars and trucks pass over shortly before road intersects with Park Avenue.
The strips are a safety mechanism originally installed in the 1990s to alert drivers of the approaching stoplight, which is the first traffic signal in miles that northbound vehicles exiting the Edens and Kennedy expressways or the interstate highways encounter.
Irritated neighbors, who say they are fed up after no resolution from years of communications and meetings with IDOT, are feeling a sense of renewed hope after the Lake County state’s attorney’s office lodged a complaint with the Illinois Pollution Board asserting the state transportation agency is violating regulations of the state Environmental Protection Act.
According to the complaint, the noise emitted by thousands of vehicles driving over the strips each day exceeds allowable levels to the point that it is unreasonably interfering with residents’ enjoyment of life in the area.
That is, at last, music to Highland Park resident Bruce Nathanson’s ears.
” (This has) been beyond frustrating,” Nathanson said of the back-and-forth. “It’s been a lot of sleepless nights. It’s been frustrating dealing with IDOT.”
Nathanson, who lives along McCraren Road where residents are arguably the most affected, said he has heard from residents all over Highland Park and even in nearby Deerfield and Highwood who claim they can hear the rumble strips clearly, depending on weather and wind conditions.
When people buy homes near Route 41, Nathanson explained, they know to expect some noise from traffic and nearby trains, but the rapid successions of noise produced by the rumble strips is just unbearable.
Another resident involved on a rumble strips committee, Jessica Scott, said, “I constantly tell my husband, ‘We’ve got to replace these windows.'”
Scott said her bedroom is in the part of her house closest to the rumble strips, and they have become a thorn in her side.
Needed or nuisance?
The strips, which are laid out in three sets a couple hundred feet apart from each other, were converted from concrete to asphalt strips in the fall, a change residents said did little to mitigate the issue.
IDOT officials declined an interview, but wrote in an emailed statement that the 2019 project met federal and state requirements for design and installation, and that the rumble strips were reinstalled at a shallower depth and with a “softer asphalt surface.”
A spokesperson also pointed to a study conducted with the University of Illinois, which became public this month, that noise levels after the modifications were “consistently less” than found in the 2021 study.
More than 56,000 vehicles travel through the Park Avenue intersection each day, the agency said, calling it a “significant mover of people in the region.”
The agency cited more than 1,000 highway deaths in Illinois over a seven-year period, after a downward trend in previous years. IDOT’s statement said there is a consensus that distracted driving and speeding are playing a “huge role,” and that it is “particularly sensitive to the need to alert drivers to pay attention to conditions, reduce speeds and prepare to stop.
“Rumble stirps have proven to be an effective strategy at preventing crashes and saving lives — that’s our No. 1 goal for installing them,” the statement continued. “In conjunction with signs, they are critical tools to alert drivers as they are approaching unusual traffic circumstances.
“We look forward to any dialogue that addresses community concerns while preserving public safety,” the statement concluded.
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Emails obtained through a public records request detail in part how discussions over remedies and data from a study conducted on noise levels have dragged out between IDOT and the Lake County state’s attorney’s office, as well as with State Sen. Julie Morrison, D-Deerfield, State Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, and city of Highland Park officials who worked to connect residents with the agency.
Melanie Nelson of the state’s attorney’s office informed IDOT in September that the office would hold off on filing a draft noise pollution complaint with the Illinois Pollution Board because, “IDOT agreed to provide us with the underlying data from its March 2022 noise study and information on any subsequent noise studies that are completed post-construction,” but said the office might revisit lodging the complaint if the planned remediation does not solve the noise pollution.
Nelson, who also asked for materials in August, made another request in November for the study’s “underlying data” following references by IDOT officials to results of the study during a call about the rumble strips with stakeholders, emails show.
On March 31, Nelson wrote to IDOT officials that the state’s attorney’s office was proceeding with legal action, “since IDOT refuses to cooperate with simple transparency requests and has failed to meet the terms of our agreement with your general counsel,” and would be challenging the department’s “bad faith violation of FOIA” laws.
In a statement shared with the News-Sun, State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart wrote that his office has worked “hand in hand with city, county and legislative leaders to urge IDOT to fix this noise problem for Highland Park residents.”
“But when these changes did not lead to improvements,” he wrote, “we had to seek court intervention.”
Though he doesn’t live as close as many of the affected residents, Highland Park City Councilman Tony Blumberg said he can sometimes hear the rumble strips “very intrusively” at his home, and was sympathetic when he was asked to join the rumble strips committee, though he emphasized Highland Park itself has no say in the roadway since it is under state jurisdiction.
Blumberg said IDOT is made up of professionals who “would like to solve the problem,” and was hopeful that the recent modifications to the strips might have significantly reduced their nuisance, but “it has not turned out to be.”
As the seasons changed, Blumberg said, the noise level seemed to increase at his home, “which gave me a clearer picture of how impactful the noise was on those people who live a block or less from the rumble strips, like Bruce.
“But as a resident and an elected official that has no control about this, the time that IDOT is working in is not fair to residents,” Blumberg said. “I am not enthusiastic to see a state governmental agency work so slowly. I understand this is probably not on their front burner. But their preliminary responses to how soon they were going to have tests run and respond to this is below a reasonable bar.”
Scott emphasized that the last thing any of the residents want is for anyone to get hurt at the intersection, but asked, “What links exterior noise to safety?”
By examining the noise rather than the efficacy of the strips to alerting drivers, Scott said, “(IDOT) is studying apples and reporting on oranges.”
Nathanson recalled a brief period for several days last year as the strips were being altered as, “just like living in paradise.”
But the relative piece was short-lived for Nathanson, who said of IDOT officials, “They’re consummate bureaucrats accountable to nobody.”