PORTAGE PARK — Drivers slowed to a cease as a gentle stream of pedestrians walked throughout the brand new raised crosswalk exterior Portage Park Elementary College on Thursday morning.
Only a 12 months in the past, the scene in entrance of the varsity would have been way more chaotic, mentioned Patrick Corcoran, a Portage Elementary father or mother.
The Chicago Division of Transportation has spent two years enhancing visitors security all through the neighborhood with pace bumps, curb extensions and a neighborhood greenway with bike lanes.
Portage Park Elementary college students, dad and mom and alds. Ruth Cruz (thirtieth) and Nicholas Sposato (thirty eighth) gathered exterior the varsity Thursday to rejoice the brand new traffic-calming measures.
“We constructed this for you,” David Smith, assistant commissioner of venture improvement for CDOT, informed a gaggle of Portage Park Elementary College college students. “We’re occupied with the long run, we’re occupied with you guys, and we’re actually constructing the town so that you can take over.”
The varsity, 5330 W. Berteau Ave., is subsequent to Lengthy Avenue, a residential avenue that has turn into generally known as a cut-through route for drivers attempting to keep away from visitors on Central and Laramie avenues. Portage Park Elementary additionally sits throughout the road from the 38-acre Portage Park, which brings much more pedestrian visitors to the world.
“Whenever you mix the cut-through visitors with the father or mother dropoff and pickup visitors, it was form of the worst of each worlds that was occurring,” Corcoran mentioned. “You noticed numerous unchecked, unhealthy driver habits.”
Final 12 months, CDOT invested about $600,000 into enhancing pedestrian security round Portage Park Elementary, including the raised crosswalk to the intersection at Lengthy and Berteau avenues, curb extensions to seven surrounding intersections and pace bumps to all the streets surrounding the varsity.
The encircling space’s pace restrict was additionally lowered to twenty mph final 12 months.
Sid Shah, a advisor who works with CDOT on pedestrian security initiatives, mentioned the curb extensions and raised crosswalk cut back the period of time walkers and cyclists spend in intersections and makes them extra seen to drivers. The narrower intersections and raised crossings additionally gradual visitors, he mentioned.
“Folks have needed to decelerate and be extra conscious of different highway customers,” Corcoran mentioned.
Corcoran mentioned a Portage Park Elementary pupil was hospitalized after a driver hit her whereas she walked along with her brother to high school about three years in the past.
In February 2024, a driver hit and critically injured 18-year-old bicycle owner Ernesto Vargas only a half-mile away from Portage Park Elementary on the intersection of Lengthy Avenue and Grace Avenue. Vargas was hit down the highway from the place 16-year-old bicycle owner Josh Anleu was killed when a driver drove by means of a cease signal and hit him in October 2023.
In line with CDOT knowledge, Lengthy Avenue ranks within the metropolis’s high tenth percentile for neighborhood streets the place somebody has been killed or severely injured in a visitors crash. Eighty p.c of drivers who injured somebody in a crash on Lengthy Avenue didn’t dwell within the neighborhood, in keeping with CDOT.
The highway averages 4,000 autos per day, in keeping with CDOT. Neighborhood streets in Chicago sometimes common 1,000-2,500 autos a day.
Earlier this summer time, a “neighborhood greenway” was accomplished alongside Lengthy Avenue between Irving Park Street and Belmont Avenue. Neighborhood greenways are residential roads which have bike lanes and different traffic-calming measures.
The Lengthy Avenue traffic-calming measures included painted bikes lanes, 14 pace bumps and plastic posts put in close to 5 crosswalks. Lengthy Avenue between Patterson Avenue and Addison Avenue was additionally transformed to a one-way going south, and Lengthy between Eddy Avenue and Addison was transformed to a one-way going north. Throughout an April group assembly, CDOT officers mentioned the one-way designations will assist filter cut-through visitors again out to arterial roads resembling Central and Laramie avenues.
Smith mentioned CDOT has already noticed a 50 p.c enhance in cyclists utilizing Lengthy Avenue because the neighborhood greenway was accomplished. Smith added that 97 p.c of drivers touring by means of the world have been adhering to the brand new 20 mph pace restrict.
Cruz mentioned her workplace has acquired optimistic emails from neighbors of Lengthy Avenue, together with one from a resident who mentioned she often crosses the road at the very least twice a day and estimates a 50 p.c drop in automobile visitors because the security enhancements had been added.
Shah mentioned CDOT hopes to put in related traffic-calming measures round faculties all through the town.
“We now have seen instantaneous outcomes,” Smith mentioned. “That is actually successful story that we would like the entire metropolis to know.”
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