Daily Herald opinion: The ‘not nothing’ rule: Improving safety on surface-street ‘expressway’ is hard, but solutions must be found

Rolling Meadows is likely not the only suburban community struggling with a main thoroughfare that scofflaws and inattentive drivers too frequently approach with a — to use a Rolling Meadows city councilman’s term — “expressway” mentality.

So, the town’s frustrations in managing a busy stretch of Kirchoff Road are easy to understand and sympathize with.

They are not, unfortunately, so easy to deal with.

As our Christopher Placek described in a story last week, Rolling Meadows officials have been trying for years to find a means of controlling speeds on Kirchoff Road without substantially clogging traffic on a busy artery.

After a fatal early-morning crash last month, Alderman Nick Budmats pressed for at least a minimal response — the reduction of the roadway speed limit.

“If we can’t get rid of the ‘Rolling Meadows expressway’ being as wide as it is, at least we can reduce the speed for the safety of the children who cross it (to go to school), people who cross it going to the Jewel Food Store, and the people who use it to cross to go to the public library,” Budmats said during a council meeting after the crash.

Reducing the speed limit to 30 mph from 35 mph, may have some benefit, but that benefit is, of course, limited. At best, it may over time moderate the mentality of reasonable drivers who use the road frequently and obey speed limits. Its impact on others, especially those who ignore speed limits, will be considerably less successful.

It is that latter group of drivers that communities in such circumstances must focus on. They essentially have two options, increased enforcement and design change.

Rolling Meadows officials say they have applied the first and will continue to step up efforts to ticket drivers who speed through town. And, the city has engaged in serious efforts to address the latter. It fostered a broad community debate last year over trimming the road down by a lane, but ultimately rejected the idea over concerns about the potential for increased traffic — an outcome that has consequences of its own for safety in addition to the discomforts of a more-crowded road.

It also is considering inserting a traffic light into the mix as well as other roadway modifications that can help slow traffic and increase pedestrian safety.

What ultimately will come of all this is hard to predict. The important thing is that it not be nothing. Periodic fatalities, serious collisions and generally unsafe street conditions cannot be allowed to become an accepted cost of suburban living.

It apparently is going to require further traffic studies and consultant reports to find the Kirchoff Road solution, but the city is to be commended for keeping the pressure on. Communities throughout the suburbs with similar challenges do well to take the same approach.