Safer Batavia Avenue crossings possible, but at what price?
Three crosswalks on Batavia Avenue could be made safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, but the most immediate and likely fix won't come cheap.
That would be to modify the relatively new flashing-beacon systems by putting them on masts that hang over the intersections, instead of on the side of the road where they are now. It would also include adding another beacon 200 feet in advance of the crosswalk, and painting a "stop" line on the pavement farther back.
Doing so would improve drivers' ability to see pedestrians crossing, eliminating a blind spot for drivers in the inner lanes that happens when drivers in the outer lanes stop. When those drivers stop, they block sight of the light that indicates someone is trying to cross, and of the pedestrian. More nighttime lighting would be added.
"It has to be more obnoxious than it is right now," is how Alderman Alan Wolff put it in a discussion at a committee meeting Tuesday night. He is a mechanic at a service station a block south of one of the crossings, and he frequently test-drives customers' cars on Batavia Avenue/Route 31, he said.
But the plan would likely cost about $500,000, city engineer Rahat Bari said.
That gave aldermen pause, but ultimately, they decided to discuss putting the project in the 2018 budget. The money likely would have to come out of the city's general fund reserves, according to finance director Peggy Colby.
The crossings are at McKee, Union and Morton streets. The city is most worried about the one at McKee, where pedestrians were hit three times between July 2015 and July 2017.
Bari said he believes the Illinois Department of Transportation, which has jurisdiction over Route 31, would approve the proposed changes and that they could be installed relatively quickly.
Other solutions discussed, such as converting the highway to three lanes, are less likely to be approved and would take more time to study, according to Bari.
Police Chief Dan Eul said the city got a taste of what a "road diet" would be like when lanes were closed during resurfacing south of Main Street this summer.
"To be quite honest, it became walls of traffic. It wasn't just at peak traffic hours, it was at all times of the day," he said. "Basically you would have right turns only. We think traffic would try to find alternate routes, then we would have more traffic in the residential neighborhoods."
He said there are 18 intersections along Batavia Avenue in Batavia.
Bari said IDOT has told city officials there is too much traffic on the road to reduce it to three lanes. But Alderman Lucy Thelin Atac said the city should check again.
Other alternatives are: removing the flashing beacons, which were installed in 2015; asking IDOT for permission to install pedestrian-activated stoplights, which it has prohibited in this part of the state; or convincing IDOT to install a traffic signal at McKee.