Mount Prospect studying improvements at Rand and Central
This story has been updated to change Lifetime Fitness to L.A. Fitness.
Mount Prospect is attacking traffic congestion at one of its busiest intersections.
Options to improve traffic at the intersection of Mount Prospect, Rand and Central roads were presented last week to the village board at its committee-of-the-whole meeting.
"The intersection, I think everyone is well aware, conveys a lot of traffic every day," Public Works Director Sean Dorsey told the board. "It has a bunch of weird angles. It is problematic in a number of ways."
Delays, blocked intersections and general pedestrian and bicycle unfriendliness are among the problems, he said.
Representatives of Christopher B. Burke Engineering, the Rosemont firm hired to study the intersection, provided additional ammunition to the village's so far unsuccessful effort to convince the Illinois Department of Transportation to approve a signal at the former Mitchell Buick site across from Walmart.
The alternatives recommended for consideration in various combinations included:
• Adding auxiliary lanes on Mount Prospect Road at Central Road and on Central Road at Rand Road.
• Adding a new traffic signal to the northwest on Rand Road.
• Modifying the main exit from the Mount Prospect Plaza to a southbound right-out only.
• Adding a new traffic signal at the plaza's southeast access drive near L.A. Fitness.
• Adding dual left-turn lanes on Rand at Central in both directions.
• Upgrading traffic signal equipment to eliminate intersection blocking.
• Relocating the plaza's main entrance/exit.
Mayor Arlene Juracek said the village intends to meet with IDOT regarding the Mitchell Buick site at 801 E. Rand Road.
"I think it's important that we bring this study with us and say, 'This is what is being contemplated down the road,'" she said.
Juracek asked whether the traffic signal locations would meet state requirements. Project Engineer Emily Anderson said they would. Both Juracek and Trustee Paul Hoefert were concerned the right-out only exit from Mount Prospect Plaza would encourage traffic to spill onto Henry Street and into the neighborhood to the west of Rand Road.
"Ultimately, there are going to be improvements made at the intersection of Rand, Mount Prospect and Central roads, even probably if we have to do something ourselves, because it's that critical to traffic movement in the area," Trustee Michael Zadel added.