Batavia won't revisit opening road near Aurora subdivision

Wagner Road will remain gated off at Mesa Lane in Aurora, for now.

Batavia aldermen Tuesday tabled an idea to ask Aurora to take the gate down and let residents of the Kirkland Farm subdivision in Aurora use Mesa to get to Kirk Road, instead of traversing Batavia streets.

The issue came up in 2013 and 2014 when a developer proposed to build a mixed-use commercial and industrial complex on Kirk Road, near Wind Energy, and increased traffic at its intersection with Kirk was anticipated.

Wind Energy is the only way for cars, garbage trucks, school buses and delivery trucks to enter and exit. Emergency vehicles can get in off Mesa by moving the gate.

The gate was put in when a Super Walmart, a Sonic restaurant and other stores were built across Mesa, on the northwest corner of Kirk and Butterfield roads. Kirkland Farm residents were worried that shoppers and delivery trucks would cut through their neighborhood, especially if Kirk was closed because of an accident.

Several dozen residents of the neighborhood showed up to express their desire to keep the road closed. So did Aurora resident Roger Vernon, who was involved with groups such as the Big Woods-Marmion Neighborhood Association back then that got Aurora to put up the gate.

"Before Walmart there was a lot traffic trying to get around the traffic backup (at Kirk and Butterfield)," he said. "Since Walmart, Butterfield Road traffic has increased. Opening that gate would aggravate that problem."

In 2008, Mayor Jeff Schielke criticized keeping the gate closed after a heavy storm flooded the intersection of Kirk and Butterfield. Batavia police ended up having to direct southbound Kirk traffic through residential streets to Raddant Road as a detour to Butterfield. Raddant did not have a traffic light then.

"If I had my way, I would go out with a Sawzall tonight," Alderman Alan Wolff said of the gate.

A memo from Batavia community development director Scott Buening reported that at least 580 vehicles a day from that area were using Wind Energy, and that by removing the gate, at least half of that traffic would instead use Mesa.

"If Aurora really wants to have a gate down there, let them put it on the city line," Wolff said.