Arlington Heights orders traffic study

Installing no-left-turn signs didn't help, so the Arlington Heights village board is hoping a $48,000 traffic study will.

After more than a year of trying to figure out a solution to traffic concerns around Northwest Community Hospital, the board hired an outside firm on Monday to get some answers.

Trustee Norm Breyer was on a committee that studied the issue for eight months.

"There were some very spirited conversations about this," Breyer said. "Some residents even did their own traffic study."

Trustees Bert Rosenberg and Helen Jensen voted against the idea. Both said the study should wait until the hospital's expansion project is complete, which will be in 2010.

"I just don't think we'll have a true picture of the problem until then," Jensen said.

Concerns about hospital traffic erupted back in June 2006 after a $250 million expansion was approved for the hospital at 800 W. Central Road. Part of the approval included adding no-left-turn signs for five streets along Central Road, between the hospital and Arlington Heights Road.

The signs prohibited drivers going east from turning left onto Walnut, Mitchell, Chestnut, Highland or Vail.

Several weeks after the no-left-turn change was approved, some Surrey Ridge West neighbors objected, saying the change eliminated their shortcut to downtown and created a safety hazard. At one August 2007 board meeting, 50 residents spent more than an hour criticizing the decision.

At another meeting, Trustee Virginia Kucera vowed to bring up the issue at every single board meeting until her colleagues agreed to take the signs down. When an elderly Arlington Heights woman called Kucera in tears about the signs, Kucera told the woman to ignore the signs.

In response to the uproar, the board voted to take down the signs and Village President Arlene Mulder formed a traffic committee, which consisted of neighbors immediately south, north and east of hospital along with a hospital representative, trustees and village staff members. The committee looked at traffic decisions that dated back several years, including the decision to close the hospital's Kirchoff Road exit.

The traffic consultant hired on Monday will look at many of the same decisions, including the Kirchoff Road exit, said Jim Massarelli, the village's director of engineering.

"They will review all the information we have, conduct traffic counts and meet with residents," Massarelli said.