95th Street neighbors seeking fence to block road noise
Residents whose houses back up to 95th Street in Naperville may get a consolation prize for living near a road construction project last year and a wider, louder intersection from now on.
The residents, who have been requesting a sound wall for the past six months, are no closer to having one built to shield their homes in the Brook Crossing Estates subdivision at the northwest corner of Plainfield/Naperville Road and 95th Street.
But they have gotten the city council to agree to consider building a fence instead.
"I'm willing to hear it out," council member Kevin Coyne said, "and vote it up or down."
The city installed a fence behind the houses in the 1990s as part of an earlier widening, said Bill Novack, director of transportation, engineering and development.
That's why council member Judith Brodhead, who lives nearby, said the city should replace the fence, with a $6.5 million project to add double left-turn lanes and dedicated right-turn lanes largely complete. The road is now about 14 feet from the edge of residents' backyards.
"This is an additional encroachment that comes very close to this block of properties," Brodhead said. "I would support the building of a fence."
The city already has planted some trees and shrubs to help absorb traffic noise.
But resident Doreen Swindall and a few of her neighbors continued to push officials to add a more solid barrier.
"The only thing I would like is a fence," Swindall told the city council Tuesday.
"I would love the sound wall, but I can understand" why it wouldn't be feasible, she said.
A sound wall wasn't built because the area west of Plainfield/Naperville Road was not included in a sound study conducted by the Federal Highway Administration, which partially funded the project, along with the Illinois Department of Transportation, Will County, Naperville and Bolingbrook.
The houses were left out of the sound study because they lie west of Plainfield/Naperville Road, which was the western border of a larger road expansion project that started at Boughton Road in Bolingbrook, Novack said.
"This one has been a puzzler since it came to us," council member Rebecca Boyd-Obarski said. "They are experiencing a change in noise due to the project."
Others on the council agreed it's hard to understand why the sound study wasn't extended further west. The study could have determined whether a sound wall was warranted.
"Although it's two different areas," council member Benjamin White said, "to me, the noise is the same."
City staff members plan to draw up a proposal by which the city would pay to install a fence behind affected houses. The council is expected to consider the fence during a future meeting.