County studying traffic on Kirk for left turn ban
Kane County this week has been studying traffic on Kirk Road in Batavia to determine the potential effects of prohibiting left turns off Kirk on to Chillem Drive and Giese Road.
It is spending a day each at Giese, Chillem and Pine Street. Vehicles are being counted and their movements through the intersections documented.
A resident of the neighborhood west of Kirk asked county and city officials in December for a ban on left turns off Kirk, due to rear-end and other crashes. Northbound drivers are hitting people stopped to make turns, or veering suddenly into the right curb lane to avoid such stopped cars, but then getting hit by cars in that lane.
However, other residents of that neighborhood only want the turns to be restricted during rush hours. Ideally, all would prefer that the county install a dedicated lane for left turns.
Batavia police and county transportation officials agree it is a dangerous situation. There are few other places on Kirk, a highway, where the county allows unprotected left turns.
But residents aren’t happy with the solution the county has offered: Banning left turns both in and out of those side streets.
Doing that would force those residents to use signalized intersections at Wind Energy Pass or Pine, if they want to get to Kirk Road.
“To be viable, we need to know what will happen at Pine Street,” said Tom Szabo, Kane County traffic section manager. He expects it could take a few weeks to complete the study and present it to city officials.
Residents and Batavia Aldermen Garran Sparks and Michael O’Brien, who represent the area, say the turn lane at Pine is too short to accommodate more cars, and the turn arrow too short, so cars will back up in to the through lane. They fear traffic will also back up along Pine Street.
The county has suggested installing temporary bollards on Kirk to prohibit left turns, and that the city should install concrete barriers (nicknamed “pork chops”) in the intersections to prohibit left turns in or out. The county will also consider installing a concrete median.
As to just prohibiting left turns during rush hour, Batavia Police Chief Gary Schira doesn’t think that would work. The crashes he has documented occurred throughout the day.
The most recent one, April 28, occurred at 10:15 p.m. on a Saturday night. A northbound driver was waiting to turn onto Chillem; another vehicle was stopped behind it. A third vehicle hit the second vehicle, then spun into oncoming traffic and hit a Nicor truck. The Nicor truck caught on fire, but passers-by managed to put it out with an extinguisher stored in the bed of the truck. Two drivers were trapped in their vehicles, and all three drivers were taken to a hospital. Schira called it a miracle that no one died.
“I think safety has to take precedence over inconvenience,” he said.