‘Don’t put us on the back burner’: Traffic light on busy Roosevelt Road stands in limbo, advocates say

Last Tuesday afternoon, as they described how speeding cars make Roosevelt Road crash-prone and terrifying to cross, residents at Wheaton’s Marion Park apartments were suddenly interrupted.

The cause? A crash on Roosevelt Road.

It’s a recurring nightmare, said senior Debbie Suggs, who’s experienced several close calls.

Only last summer, Marion Park dwellers celebrated the future installation of a traffic light to be located on Roosevelt (Route 38) east of County Farm Road.

But a year later, the improvement seems to be either in doubt or years off.

“Don’t put us on the back burner,” Suggs said Tuesday. “Don’t send us back to square one.”

There’s no dispute the stretch of Roosevelt, which has St. Francis High School and apartments on the south side and a popular mall with a Target on the north, is extremely busy, accommodating 1,900 vehicles an hour on average.

It’s also hazardous, state and municipal records show. From 2009 through 2023, nine pedestrian crashes occurred in the vicinity. And between 2017 and 2023, 83 nonfatal traffic collisions occurred.

For years, St. Francis and residents lobbied the Illinois Department of Transportation to install a traffic light. Eventually IDOT acknowledged it could put a signal on Roosevelt aligning with driveways at Target and St. Francis — but the agency won’t fund the light, which is considered a private benefit.

Although the price tag of about $840,000 is daunting, St. Francis raised over $200,000 in donations in 2024 and pledged more while state Sen. Seth Lewis secured $250,000 in state grants.

All good? “Unfortunately … we’ve hit a bump in the road, which I believe we’ll be able to overcome,” Lewis said Thursday.

First, the city of Wheaton required St. Francis to formalize a longstanding agreement with Target allowing students to park in its lot, school President Phil Kerr said. That triggered concerns about liability from the Target corporation, which intends to end parking privileges in May.

Now St. Francis is on the hook for a new parking lot estimated between $300,000 and $400,000. The school also pays Target for parking and Wheaton police to shepherd students across Roosevelt twice a day.

“I can’t raise $300,000 to $400,000 for my own parking lot in addition to another $400,000 for the traffic light,” Kerr said. “We’re a Catholic high school.”

Bottom line, “we’re about half a million short,” Lewis said.

Secondly, IDOT has embarked on a multiyear (2025-2030) plan that includes major improvements and widening on Roosevelt from west of Winfield Road to east of County Farm Road.

As a result, the traffic light needs to happen in conjunction with the bigger project, which won’t begin until the later years of the 2025-2030 plan, IDOT spokesperson Maria Castaneda explained.

“Currently, the safest crossing location for pedestrians continues to be the existing traffic signal at Illinois 38 and County Farm Road,” she said. Marian Park residents have said the County Farm Road light is too far away for the elderly, particularly in winter conditions.

Waiting until 2030 is too long, stakeholders argue.

“There seems to be a real lack of urgency,” said Stacy Walker of DuPage United, a community organization which has advocated for the light.

Kerr, who cited a severe head-on crash two weeks ago that “shook the building,” is hopeful a temporary light could be installed to keep pedestrians safe until a permanent fix emerges.

Lewis said he’ll appeal to state and local sources for financial aid and expeditious solutions.

“I have work to do to look under every rock for funding to fully fund (the light) instead of partially funding it from the public sector side,” the Bartlett Republican said.

“We should not have to wait for someone to be killed, again.”

Meanwhile, Marian Park residents were shaken but not surprised by the collision Tuesday.

Sheryl Brewer typically waits patiently for a break in traffic before steering her electric wheelchair onto Roosevelt but recently narrowly missed contact with a fast-moving car returning from Target.

“You never know when you’re going to get hit because you think that you’re always safe,” Brewer said.

Coming so close to a solution makes delays even harder, said Suggs’ daughter, Chantise Davis.

Residents want “to feel we’re heard,” Davis said. “That we’re important. That someone cares.” And for someone “to do something about it.”