Ideas to fix the Millburn Strangler

I hope that Lake County, or whoever designs the bypass for "The Millburn Strangler" uses their head and does not take the two lanes going north and south and have them squeeze down to one lane on the other end.

That design would only recreate the "Millburn Strangler" a littler farther down the road, as everyone jockeys to try and squeeze in front of the guy next to them.

The intersection of Route 45 at Grass Lake and Millburn Road is known locally as the "Millburn Strangler," because of the bottleneck of traffic that motorists have suffered for years.

The "I-have-to-get-one-car-ahead" idiots will be threatening to smash into someone to gain that one-car advancement. They will even drive on the shoulder to get ahead of you. Plus you have all of those semis hauling garbage to the Kenosha dump using Route 45, to get around the scales on Route 41 because they are probably overloaded, and that will add greatly to the congestion at the squeeze-down if you so design it that way.

Please make only one lane straight through and the other a left-turn lane to get onto Grass Lake Road. While you are at the design process, please, please, redesign the intersections you put together years ago that have the squeeze-down lanes on the other side of the intersections you designed that way.

I bet it will reduce accidents considerably, and it does not "not" increase traffic flow, it only makes the back up 50 feet away from where it would be anyway.

Kenneth Hellstern

Fox Lake

The good, the bad and the ugly still

Look around, look at your neighborhood, look in your closet, glance in the mirror.

A myriad of compromise exists.

It all blends, weaves and migrates into a transom of suitability.

Now broaden that view into a country, into a world and finally into a cosmos.

That's the surreal blend I witnessed when I took my family to the beach over the holiday weekend.

The good was the mix of serenity in clear water, fine sand and bright open sky.

The bad was the expense of driving, the challenge of parking and all the aching walking.

The ugly was the thought of a workweek soon to commence, the visible and aromatic pollution and the reminder that time is eating away at our mortal longevity.

All walks of life use the beach. There are the swimmers, the sun worshippers, the people watchers and the sand castle builders.

Visually there's the rocky landscape near the water, the blistering sand, baked from the direct sunlight and even a sparse patch of preserved prairie dune encapsulated in its own segment near a breakwater.

Looking to the south, the high-rise buildings of downtown appear as a scenic mecca.

Viewing to the north is a vision of parks and trees almost rural in appearance.

To the east is nothing but a horizon doted with sailboats, jet skies and custom yachts. That only leaves where the sun sets, the direction of west. Where the pioneers bravely ventured into the Old West to claim new outposts and towns. West is where the immigrants ventured from Ellis Island to establish new roots and a melting pot of unique cultures still present today.

Now it's where the sprawl continues to turn farmland and countryside into newly developed villages and communities.

West is where ancient civilization is adapting to modern amenities. Yet still retains many of the basic traditions from thousands of years ago.

The planet is attempting to get "greener." Wars, disease and economic depravity still exist!

Politicians continuously clash ideas and mores. The good, the bad and the ugly. History indeed repeats itself.

Still facing the same difficulties with the same rhetoric and the same lame results, only a different generation.

Randy F. Gollay

Buffalo Grove