After plan to shrink Kirchoff nixed, Rolling Meadows officials pivot to intersection fix

Weeks after narrowly rejecting a controversial plan to shrink Kirchoff Road that supporters contend would have improved safety, Rolling Meadows aldermen agreed to consider improvements at a key intersection along the corridor.

The city council unanimously approved spending $80,915 for a phase one engineering study of upgrades to the Kirchoff Road and Oriole Lane intersection, though advocates of the defeated Kirchoff road diet balked at the cost.

“Spending $80,000 on one intersection I don’t feel is the most effective use of our resources, especially when we had secured grant funding for a corridor-wide solution that would have improved safety for the entire roadway at a lower cost,” Alderwoman Karen McHale said at the council’s meeting Tuesday night. “I will support moving forward, but it is very frustrating to spend so much on one single spot instead of improving the entire roadway.”

The latest vote came three weeks after the council’s 4-3 vote to reject conceptual plans to make Kirchoff smaller. The proposal would have reduced a milelong stretch of the thoroughfare — which has two lanes in each direction and a turn lane in the center — by removing an eastbound lane and a westbound lane, and replacing them with on-street parking spaces and protected bike lanes.

Advocates of the road diet argued it would have calmed driving speeds, improved safety, and reduced the frequency of accidents involving vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Opponents said the plan would have increased traffic congestion and hindered businesses.

Aldermen Kevin O’Brien and Jenifer Vinezeano — whose wards are bounded by Kirchoff on the north and south, respectively — opposed the lane trim plan, but strongly support improvements to the Kirchoff/Oriole corner. They said residents have called for safety changes there since at least 2019, since it’s a popular crossing for children going to and from schools in the area.

“We just as a council approved to spend $84,000 on bathrooms,” said Vinezeano, referencing a vote earlier in the meeting to renovate two restrooms in city hall. “We can spend $80,000 to potentially secure a grant to make our kids a little safer in crossing a road that we know is a problem. We’ve heard it from our residents. We heard it from our residents sitting here, when they continuously asked us to make that intersection safer. Not Kirchoff Road, but that intersection in particular.”

Among the options that will be considered during the engineering study: rapid rectangular flashing beacons with push buttons that activate yellow blinking lights, shortened turn lanes and curb bump outs.

Unlikely to be approved is a stop light, officials said. A 2022 analysis by the city’s engineer and traffic management committee determined the number of accidents and vehicles at the intersection didn’t warrant a full signal, per the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.

Even if the city council still wanted to pay for and install a traffic light on its own — as some aldermen suggest — that could jeopardize future grant funding for other projects, said City Manager Rob Sabo.

Another possible option, instead, is a HAWK system, where pedestrians manually activate a push button for a red light that brings traffic to a stop, Sabo said.

Aldermen this week supported the city’s application for Illinois Department of Transportation Safe Routes to School grant funding, which could provide up to $250,000 for project design and construction improvements.