County should fix intersection

On July 14, I was the passenger in the Ford Taurus involved in the fatal accident many have followed in the paper involving two St. Charles police officers at the corner of Route 38 and Meredith Road in Virgil Township.

As you may guess, it changed my life. After spending 19 days at Delnor-Community Hospital and having 3 abdominal surgeries, I understand the long, hard road to recovery and the pain both mentally and physically that goes along with it.

I thank God and wonder every day why my boyfriend, Mitchell Westerlin, and I made it through that crash. However, Officer Vaughn Olson was not as lucky as we were and passed away a few weeks later. My prayers are still with his family.

That is why I was furious to read in the paper this week that another fatality happened at that same intersection. I know how life-changing accidents of that magnitude are. One day I'll be able to go 24 hours without thinking of the accident, but that day is still far away. My prayers and condolences go out to those involved with the crash along with their family and friends.

What worries me is how many more lives will be destroyed before the budget finally allows for a stoplight at the intersection. I know plans are sitting on someone's desk or cabinet or drawer, but why should we have to wait to feel safe until 'funds' are available?

A quick fix was to put blinking yellow lights on the road signs a few hundred yards before the intersection, but had I not been looking for the light which I knew had been placed there, I would have missed it. Are these blinking lights and now two ghostly crosses, one of which could just as easily have had my name on it, supposed to be enough for traffic to really yield and be careful?

I would like to thank those involved with petitioning for a stoplight to be placed at this intersection. But what is Kane County waiting for? I know from first-hand experience the intersection is lower than surrounding land and very foggy in the morning. Will it take a school bus, one of which carries my little sister every day, to be hit before someone gets construction started? What does it cost to feel safe in your community? What exactly have Kane County officials estimated to be the cost of a human life? I guess no more than the cost of a stop light.

Melanie Carlson

Elburn

Nice new highway, same old taxes

There are two issues here; tollway and taxes.

City leaders and state legislators want us to believe that the opening of the new Veterans Memorial Tollway is the greatest thing in the world. I and many of the tollway users think that it stinks.

There's no question that this highway is needed to serve the thousands of users every day; it is the way that we are paying for it that is the problem.

Collectively, the users of the tollway system pay many millions of dollars in taxes at the fuel pumps every year. Our government leaders, both city and state, want us to pay yet another tax at a tollbooth.

While the fuel pump tax dollars are used to pay for highways to and from Chicago, Springfield and other cities in the southern part of Illinois, we the users of the tollway system are being double taxed every time we pay at a tollbooth.

What makes things worse is that of every toll/tax dollar collected 50 cents is used for just the collecting and not for road upkeep. What a waste of our tax dollars.

Russell Johnson

Sugar Grove