After a series of safety-related complaints from neighbors, some additional traffic control measures are now scheduled for installation at Hohlfelder Road in Glencoe.
At the end of a July 20 Committee of the Whole meeting, the Village Board directed staff to place new three-way stop signs at the intersection of Hohlfelder and Orchard Lane and a new four-way stop at Hohlfelder and Sunset Avenue. The village will also add crosswalks at both locations and the public safety department will have a greater presence in the area for speed and traffic enforcement.
“We’ll see if that works. If it doesn’t satisfy us then we are going to keep looking because we want people in Glencoe safe,” Village President Howard Roin said. “Our goal is we want to make you safe. We want to do it in a reasonable way.”
Installation is expected to begin as soon as early August, according to Village Manager Phil Kiraly.
The village decision to install the new stop signs followed a campaign by residents going back at least a year alerting officials to the problems on the roughly half mile north-south roadway stretching between Westley and Dundee Roads. Hohlfelder is a main entry to the Glencoe Golf Club.
Moreover, it is often used by drivers going between the heavily traveled Dundee and Green Bay Roads with a 25 MPH speed limit and lacked any stop or yield signs, according to village documents.
In 2022, a series of residents voiced their concerns to the village.
“We live on a corner (in the area) and people blow through the stop sign and speed down the street and my wife is out there yelling at them,” recalled neighbor Stanton Lewin. “It created a lot of unhappiness.”
Many of the neighbors requested the new stop signs, but the village staff initially conducted an internal review of the area and decided at first not to place four-way signs, believing the conditions did not warrant them.
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After meeting with neighbors who continued to object to the situation in January of this year, village staff opted to retain Gewalt Hamilton Associates, Inc., a traffic engineering consulting firm, to monitor traffic.
“This is as comprehensive a traffic study as has been performed in the time I’ve been here,” newly retired Public Works Director David Mau said. “And I think appropriately so. We wanted to fully understand the issues that were out there.”
After collecting the data, GHA then produced a lengthy report concluding that many residents were driving well over the posted speed limit.
“We don’t need any studies to tell us there is crazy speeding going on,” Lewin said. “It was nice to see the study validate that but this has been very apparent to everyone on the street.”
After receiving the GHA report, officials met with neighbors in early July and then announced the direction to staff at the July Committee of the Whole meeting where a group of neighbors packed the room.
“If I lived on Hohlfelder, I’d be in the audience too,” Roin said.
Roin added he travels frequently on Hohlfelder and is aware of the issue and hopes the additional public safety presence will help.
“There are going to be more tickets,” he said. “The hope is — and we’ll see — is that will slow everything down. People don’t like getting tickets.”
Roin and other trustees did not rule out further attempts to change traffic patterns in the future, if the stop signs and crosswalks don’t provide enough traffic calming.
Village Trustee Dudley Onderdonk said there was not a “silver bullet” solution.
“There is even a bigger picture to take a look at for managing traffic not only here, but in other parts of the community,” Onderdonk said.
The audience members applauded the decision for the stop signs, but like village officials, took a wait-and-see attitude.
“I think it will probably work,” Lewin said after the meeting. “If it doesn’t, we will go from there.”
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.