This Naperville street considered one of the most passive-aggressive in US

Naperville’s Ogden Avenue may be a daily driving staple for many Naperville residents, but it also comes with its challenges. A very unspoken challenge to be exact.

According to a survey from Sacramento-based company American River Wellness, it’s considered to be one of the most passive-aggressive roads in the country, coming in at spot No. 88 out of 100, and among the top three in Illinois.

North Avenue in Chicago took the No. 10 spot on the national list, followed by Green Bay Road in the North Shore suburbs at No. 11. Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles ranked No. 1 in the survey, followed by U.S. 1/Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at No. 2 and Central Avenue (Yonkers to White Plains Corridor) in Westchester County, New York, at No. 3.

“For all the conversation around road rage in America, a lot of drivers are not actually dealing with screaming matches or dangerous confrontations on their daily commute,” Graham Sargent of American River Wellness wrote.

Instead, many people are dealing day to day with the type of driver who is “quieter, pettier and in many ways more exhausting,” he said. This is the driver who may be refusing to follow certain etiquette: speeding up when another person signals or blocking an intersection to protect their spot in a line full of cars, for example.

The organization surveyed 3,011 drivers in May to identify the roads and routes most likely to cause passive-aggressive driving behavior, including tailgating, blocking merges, brake-checking and excessive honking.

When it came to Ogden Avenue, the study found that the street had the “polished suburban energy of a road where patience quietly leaks away between shopping plazas.”

“Drivers are not usually raging; they are just deeply unwilling to lose position. Someone trying to leave a strip mall gets ignored. A lane change before a light becomes a small act of betrayal. Cars creep forward to block entrances and turn signals often seem to make nearby drivers less helpful, not more,” according to a news release about the survey.

It was a description of Ogden Avenue with which Naperville Police Cmdr. Rick Krakow said he could not argue.

When it comes to traffic on the thoroughfare, the police department sees nearly every kind of violation occur, he said. Speeding is a major concern on Ogden Avenue because the speed limit is faster on the west side of town and progressively gets slower moving into the northern and eastern portions of Naperville. Other common traffic violations police see include following too closely and lane violations.

“It’s a heavily traveled roadway, and with that naturally comes traffic violators,” Krakow said.

When asked if there were any stretches of the thoroughfare he thought were particularly bad when it came to traffic issues, he pointed to the area around Ogden Avenue and Naper Boulevard.

“There’s just been some large developments in that area and traffic congestion, along with well-documented traffic congestion with the coffee shop that’s up there off of Ogden Avenue,” he said, referring to the drive-thru coffee shop 7 Brew. “That area, I can understand why maybe a driver would become frustrated or angry while traveling down Ogden.”

The 7 Brew at the corner of Ogden Avenue and Iroquois Avenue has garnered a reputation since opening two years ago for drawing long lines of cars that wrap around the block, though city officials have noted that many of the issues at the store have receded in recent months.

Despite all the traffic concerns, Krakow said there was nothing he would change about Ogden Avenue.

“Ogden Avenue is as congested or full of traffic as it is because of all the great businesses that are along that thoroughfare throughout Naperville,” he said. “With the great developments and all the business that we have, the congestion, some may say, is for a good reason, so we just hope that everyone puts on some good music and travel safely as they make their way down Ogden Avenue in Naperville.”