Petition addresses safety after Elgin boy's Route 20 death

The mother and aunt of an Elgin boy who died after being hit by a car while he crossed Route 20 on foot hope an online petition will prevent similar tragedies.

Elizabeth Burnette said she wants a wall to be built along Route 20 to prevent other kids from doing what her son Gerardo “Lalo” Simental did Jan. 14 — take a shortcut by going over a chain-link fence and running across busy lanes of traffic to the other side. He was hit and killed by an eastbound car.

Lalo, a seventh-grader at Abbott Middle School, was with his brother Miguel, 13, an eighth-grader, Burnette said. The two were going from their apartment in the Mulberry Lane area to their grandmother's house near Elgin Community College.

Burnette's sister, Tanya Burnette-Mora, started the “Build a wall/walkway for safety” petition at change.org, which gathered more than 820 signatures as of Tuesday. The petition also asks for a walkway to be built across Route 20 west of McLean Boulevard, where Lalo died.

Burnette said she repeatedly told her children to never cross Route 20 and instead walk west to McLean Boulevard and under Route 20 to get to the other side.

“There are a lot of my kids' friends and kids in the neighborhood who have told me they used that route several times,” she said. “If something is put out there, they won't do it. But if it's accessible, they're going to do it.”

Elgin Police Deputy Chief Bill Wolf said the only other pedestrian accident at Route 20 and McLean Boulevard was in 2011, when an intoxicated adult who was walking along the road was hit and killed by a vehicle.

But the issue of kids running across the roadway has come up over the years, Wolf said. The city contacted the Illinois Department of Transportation — which has jurisdiction over Route 20 — a few times to repair the damaged fence, he said.

Burnette and her sister said they, too, used to cross Route 20 when they were children.

“I always thought, ‘Man, I wished they built a bridge here,'” Burnette-Mora said. “You had to walk way out of your way just to get to the other side.”

The fence along Route 20 is intended to prevent people from crossing the roadway, IDOT spokeswoman Carson Quinn said.

“We at IDOT take the situation very seriously,” Quinn said. “Unfortunately there are many locations such as this site where pedestrians are discouraged from crossing due to safety issues.”

During the current reconstruction of the Route 20 and McLean Boulevard intersection, which is expected to be completed in the fall, a temporary sidewalk is open at all times on one side of McLean, Quinn said. Currently, that sidewalk is on the east side, farthest from the apartment complex where Lalo lived.

IDOT also is studying proposed improvements on the entire stretch of Route 20 from Nesler Road to Shales Parkway, including crossing for pedestrians and bicyclists, Quinn said.

Burnette, a single mother of five, said she blames herself for Lalo's death, because she would have driven the boys if she had a working car. She can't afford repairs after her work hours were cut.

“(Speaking publicly about it) is something super difficult,” she said, “but if I can prevent any other mother from going through what I have gone through, I will do it.”