Road Construction

Hidden Dangers of Construction Zones

October 28, 2019 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

The holidays are approaching. If you’ve spent any time in the Woodfield Mall area recently, you would know that there is a lot of road construction going on, making an already heavy-traffic area even more congested, especially on the weekends when the shopping faithful are out in full force. If that isn’t frustrating enough, you may have also heard about the driver who crashed his car into the mall and drove around a bit before being taken into custody by police. It just goes to show that there are some things in life that you can’t control, like the actions of others. When it comes to traffic safety there are things you can look out for that will hopefully make your next trip to the mall safer and more bearable.

Avoid Road Rage

Everyone has seen people lose their cool while driving. Maybe you’re guilty of it yourself. Remember, even if people can see your hand signals, they likely can’t hear what words you are screaming at them. If you have kids in the car, they will certainly hear them. Sometimes hand gestures are appropriate while driving, like waiving thank you to another motorist who lets you merge in front of them, or letting someone else know you are waiting to let them through. However, expressing your disdain for someone probably won’t help them learn any kind of lesson and will only cause your own blood pressure to rise. The best bet is to try and stay calm. Focusing your attention on one guy you think might be a jerk can leave you at risk of getting distracted and might make you miss other hazards. It’s much better to keep your cool and keep your attention focused on avoiding collisions.

Look for Construction Vehicles

There are all kinds of dump trucks, backhoes, pickup trucks, and other heavy machinery roaming around construction areas. Sometimes they leave the coned-off sections of the road and meander through traffic. If you’re not looking, suddenly a bulldozer can jump out in front of you. It’s worth it to scan the portions of the road that are blocked off to normal traffic as you look forward in anticipation of other vehicles maneuvering in front of you. Often times, workers will signal to drivers to let them know when a work vehicle is attempting to cross or enter the road. It would be a mistake to always rely on that. You can’t expect everyone else to always do safe and reasonable things, but you can take steps to help ensure your own safety. This is one of them.

Take Your Time

Eventually, we all get where we’re going. It’s best to plan for the worst and take your time. This is especially true for shopping trips. The value of your life and limbs far exceeds any stuff you can buy. If you put things into perspective, parking spots are not worth fighting over. Merging ahead of that one guy who has been irritating you since the last stop sign isn’t worth it. Plus, (parents will get this one), if you are less stressed out from your perilous journey to the mall, you are less likely to lose it when your child inevitably begs you to buy another worthless piece of plastic they will forget about five minutes after returning home. You may show up a little later, but you’ll glide through the mall, sipping your latte, skillfully deflecting your kids’ outright obnoxious demands to get them more stuff they don’t need. Take solace in knowing that even if you have to sit in the car longer you can always drop a few quarters into one of those mall massage chairs and let those automated rollers knead the frustration away.

Chicago Releases Long-Expected West Side Traffic Safety Plan

October 10, 2019 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the city of Chicago recently announced a West Side Vision Zero Traffic Safety Plan, which aims to address the prior administration’s intent to create a comprehensive infrastructure plan based on “crash data to identify 43 high crash corridors and eight high crash areas in Chicago,” according to SmartCitiesWorld, an online publisher specializing in infrastructure analysis. The new plan comes on the footsteps of the city’s announcement that it would spend $6 million on establishing proper infrastructure and safety on the West Side of Chicago. As part of this initiative, the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), recently installed pedestrian islands at the intersection of Madison St. and St. Louis Avenue. This announcement and the work soon to begin on the West Side is all being done under the City’s Vision Zero Chicago initiative, part of a global movement that addresses fatal infrastructure issues throughout cities with the belief that crashes can be easily avoided so long as the proper infrastructure is in place.

According to the Vision Zero Principles the city prominently displays on its website, the new initiative sets out to adopt and implement specific plans that match accordingly to high crash areas. As discussed above, the recent pedestrian islands that were installed on the West Side are just the beginning of acknowledging and trying to alleviate the injuries likely to occur in neighborhoods with dangerous infrastructure issues. Overall, actions such as these fit under the umbrella of the City’s ultimate goals which it declares are to:

Invest equitably in communities that are most affected by severe traffic crashes.
Work to change behaviors and perceptions to build citywide culture of safety.
Make streets safer for all users.
Encourage and implement policies, training, and technologies that create safer vehicles and professional drivers.

All of this goes to say that Chicago understands there are communities that have long been neglected when it comes to issues such as infrastructure; and the West Side is certainly one of those communities. As the initial high crash data showed, seven of the eight high crash areas were located on the West and South sides of Chicago. With the introduction of this new plan, residents of these communities will be receiving long awaited uptick in public safety standards that will render the roads and sidewalks far safer for all.

The West Side Initiative

Although the official plan has yet to be posted to the City’s dedicated website for this topic, Streetsblog Chicago wrote an analysis of what can be expected. “The Vision Zero West Side Plan includes 15 strategies to improve traffic and pedestrian safety in East and West Garfield Park, North Lawndale and Austin. The recommendations include safety improvement around transit stations; efforts to promote walking and biking to school.” Overall, the new plan appears to go all in on alleviating a lot of the issues that have plagued this part of the City for years. What makes this plan different than other projects that have been announced in the past is the fact that it truly is comprehensive and input from community leaders on the West Side and all around the city have been taken into consideration. For example, in creating the West Side initiative, the CDOT worked with the Garfield Park Community Council, the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council, Lawndale Christian Health Center, Build, and Austin Coming Together.

While the plan that has been proposed appears to be all about public safety policy, there’s more to it that CDOT is hoping truly transforms how people travel on the West Side and engage with their community. For example, while traffic safety is a key part of the initiative, the plan also calls for job creation and an increase in quality of life. One way it aims to achieve these two goals is through allowing residents to feel safe walking, biking, and using public transportation. While such things and fixing light poles and cleaning up transit areas seem small, the reality is that actions such as this make individuals more likely to use means other than driving for transportation purposes. As we have repeatedly addressed, the more individuals on the roads and increasing the odds of traffic throughout the city, the more crashes and injuries that will result so long as infrastructure issues remain.

Ultimately, this new initiative may appear to be no more than a pipe dream for communities that have long been promised change throughout the city, but the real hope remains that CDOT will hold to its plan and transform parts of the city and will keep those on the road safe, and the residents in the community much safer.

Lightfoot’s Blitz Days Serve as a Reminder of the Dangers of Potholes on our Roads

October 3, 2019 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

As a way to curb the number of accidents and amount of damage done to vehicles before the winter season arrives, Chicago Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, and the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) have announced they will be conducting “Blitz Days” each Saturday between the months of September and October. The Blitz Days serve as an attempt to get road crews out and on the streets before the weather gets too harsh. In the meantime, the city is asking that motorists drive slow around crews to ensure both pedestrian and driver safety.

This certainly isn’t the first time we have heard of the city conducting work such as this. In a city the size of Chicago and with a harsh winter quickly approaching and ready to tear the roads apart, it’s an absolute necessity to ensure road safety. The city already announced in a press release on September 6^th that “this year to data, CDOT has filled nearly 527,000 potholes throughout the city’s 50 wards.” When taking this large number into consideration, its worth the reminder that Chicago was also previously ranked third in the nation in terms of total number of hours spent in traffic, resulting in roughly $1,300 wasted annually per commuter. Cited by the 2019 Urban Mobility Report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, the Institute found a multitude of factors to play a critical role in wasted dollars and increased traffic, but its safe to say that issues such as road infrastructure were the largest factor. While 527,000 potholes seem like a lot, looking to the city’s history with infrastructure issues paints an entirely different picture. Granted, the winter months wreak havoc on roads and roadwork is impossible to complete when its snowing and below freezing outside; however, these are necessary issues that must be taken care of to maintain road safety.

In discussing these Blitz Days, acting CDOT Commissioner, Tom Carney, stated “we anticipate having about 30 pothole patching crews assigned to wards throughout the city. With this additional help, we estimate that we will be able to fill more than 5,000 potholes on each of these days.” If the city is able to follow through on this promise, these would be a major boost for local residents already dreading the morning and evening commutes. While traffic alone is bad, being forced to sit in traffic due to issues such as potholes is far worse. Ultimately, the hope is that the city is able to properly address the infrastructure issues and ensure driver safety in the process of doing so.

Just How Dangerous are Potholes?

In a city like Chicago, the cold weather presents an annual challenge for the city in that it causes roads to crumble and crack at a much quicker rate. Potholes have the ability to form overnight and when adding the daily wear and tear of Chicago commutes, the issue can become dangerous very quickly. Although many people may think that potholes, due to their often-small size, don’t pose a major safety risk, the opposite is true. They may not often be the cause of an accident, but the reality is that they are a contributing factor to damaging your vehicle, that places you and other drivers at a severe risk and financial detriment.

A few years back, Digital Trends wrote a great article that went to great lengths to establish why potholes remain such a large issue in the United States and the dangers they pose. In the piece, Digital Trends had the opportunity to speak with an Area Manager for Bridgestone, Abilio Toledo, who acknowledged that while potholes present serious risks, the issue is that we often cannot see the full damage they do to our vehicles. For example, if we damage our tires due to driving through a pothole, one of the warning signs is a bulge in the side wall of our tire; however, this often isn’t the case. Toledo went on to say, “‘the tire will snap the inner lining. It still holds air but there’s a bubble. If it doesn’t blow out, the tire is still compromised and can blow out at any moment. So, you think you made it through the pothole and you’re okay, but you didn’t.’” When this occurs, the results can often affect fuel efficiency, the tread of your tires, and the overall alignment of the vehicle. What all of this says is that the damage may not be present at all after you hit a pothole but when your vehicle’s suspension and tire tread can all be affected in the long term, then we must start thinking about how this could place others in danger on the road at a later time. All it takes is an individual’s car pulling to the left a little too much for a car in the adjacent lane to be pushed off the road. These factors all play a role in how accidents occur.

Keeping an Eye Out

In the News – Week of September 2nd

September 6, 2019 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

New Data Provides Further Insight on Chicago’s Scooters

A new study conducted by DePaul University researchers has discovered that the electric scooters the city recently adopted as part of a four-month long trial are now being used as legitimate choices for commuting during morning and evening rush hour periods. What was once deemed a fad that many cities throughout the United States were quickly shutting down due to safety hazards and an overall lack of regulations for the public has now shown that maybe they are more useful than originally thought. The study, which was done by the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Planning, looked at 12 hours of data from a single day in the month of July. Ultimately, what this data was able to show was that in the roughly 2000 scooters trips that were taken in single day, a majority of the rides took place between 7-9am and 5-7pm.

As many in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs already know, traffic in the city can be grueling. Just like any large city, it seems that the traffic will simply never end. This new research seems to suggest that some individuals throughout the city may be turning from public transportation and vehicles altogether, and joining the scooter sharing fleet. Joseph P. Schwieterman, one of the researchers who conducted the study stated “I thought perhaps scooters were a novelty and people would use them in their leisure time, to make their social activities a little easier, but what we found is that rush hour is when most of the money is being made.” Such results from the pilot program are very important to note. While the scooters may seem like non-factor in the larger view of the city’s infrastructure as a whole, the reality is that people will go to great lengths to make their trips quicker in the morning and evening. While Chicago has clearly experienced the negatives associated with scooters, data such as this may begin changing people’s perspectives of the scooter sharing program altogether.

Of course, just because people are beginning to adopt the pilot program, does not mean it is in the best interest of city residents. As we have continuously covered, allowing scooters within city limits poses a severe risk to pedestrians and bicyclists in the city, as well as the scooter riders themselves. At this point, there have not been any developments regarding the most pressing issue – the fact that the scooter companies have failed to establish insurance coverage for riders. This effectively creates an insurance gap which could place riders in a dangerous and expensive situation if an accident were to occur. All of this is to say that while the scooters become more popular and the city becomes accustomed to seeing them, the city should also be making strides to make them much safer and establish further regulations that ensure that riders and the surrounding public are protected legally as well.

Lightfoot to Hold Town Hall on Budget Spending; Updates Expected Regarding the City’s Infrastructure

Mayor Lightfoot has announced that she will be holding several town hall meetings for Chicagoans in September 2019 to allow for open discussion regarding the City’s budget as a broader attempt to provide transparency to the city’s residents. One of the topics that will likely be discussed is how the city plans on spending the significant increase in funding it is set to receive as part of Governor Pritzker’s $45 billion capital plan that was announced in May of 2019.

We previously wrote on the plan’s overall impact on the crumbling infrastructure throughout the state, especially the roads and freeways connecting Chicago to the surrounding suburbs. Mayor Lightfoot’s townhall should hopefully provide some further updates on announced projects, such as the Kennedy Expressway reconstruction and the I-80 Ridge Road to Lincoln Highway rebuild. While these projects will likely take a significant amount of time to be completed, its important they are followed through as it was announced earlier in May that Illinois drivers were losing roughly $18.3 billion per year due to poor infrastructure and traffic.

Further, the City of Chicago has released a 2020 Budget Survey that asks city residents which areas of the budget should receive reduced or increased spending. If you are interested in attending any of the meetings, see below for further information:

6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, September 4 at the Copernicus Center on 5216 W. Lawrence Ave.
9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Saturday, September 14 at Roberto Clemente High School on 1147 N. Western Ave.
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 19 at Southeast United Methodist Youth and Community Center (The Zone) at 11731 S Ave.
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 25 at Lindblom Math and Science Academy, 6130 S. Wolcott Ave.

Illinois budget: Drivers advised to use caution as construction resumes

July 7, 2017 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Crews and workers are expected back today

After more than two years, Illinois lawmakers ended the longest state budget impasse in modern history, overriding Governor Bruce Rauner’s veto attempt of budget-related legislation. The money and the votes didn’t come easy, and there will be residual effects.

We’re not talking about the $5 billion tax increase. In the short-term, we’re talking about state roads. As we noted last month, roughly 900 statewide construction and transportation projects worth $3.3 billion had been put on hold while the budget was in limbo. On July 1 the Illinois Department of Transportation warned that the shutdown would impact “highway, rail, transit, and aeronautics projects.” On July 4, as tense negotiations inched forward at a strained pace, the department updated its website to say that construction would stay suspended.

Yesterday, the IDOT updated its site yet again to announce that construction will resume today now that a budget is in place. But it also warned the public to be especially cautious traveling in or around work zones, as projects rev up, traffic slows, and nearly 22,000 workers affected by the stoppage are put back to work.

That means: Keeping an eye out for workers, construction crews and vehicles, and anyone in orange vests. The delay of a state budget forced state-funded crews and contractors to abandon all construction sites, no matter the condition. Highways that were once saturated with people putting in long hours went dark for a week, and it’s likely that motorists grew accustomed to that. Now that workers are back, drivers should expect slower speed zones and more congestion as construction gets back on track.

Also be aware of: Construction zones that are technically active, but have yet to see crews on site. The state budget doesn’t necessarily mean that all contractors are obligated or have sorted through the logistics of scheduling or assignments. Some sites may take priority over others, leaving voids in certain areas. Active construction or not, drivers are required to obey all traffic signs and speeds while traveling through work zones and to stay alert.

Construction areas and interstates to know: As noted by the IDOT in recent weeks for pothole patching utility work, bridge repair work, and other closures: I-55, I-72, I-80, I-57, I-280, which have seen construction at various points of the interstate; check the IDOT’s Twitter for real-time updates.

Illinois budget impasse threatens to halt road construction

June 16, 2017 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

A July 1 deadline looms

The Illinois Department of Transportation announced this week that statewide roadwork might come to a halt at the end of June, a consequence of the Illinois budget crisis, now on the verge of entering its third consecutive year. As a result, the state won’t be able to pay contractors by a July 1 deadline.

Chicagoist reports that the IDOT has informed construction crews that all roadwork must stop by June 30, pending a stopgap measure or a budget resolution. A stopgap measure was used last summer to prevent a similar situation from escalating.

This all comes as Governor Bruce Rauner calls for a special session of the state legislature beginning next week to hammer out a budget, a prospect that seems unlikely given the staunch refusal of both Republicans and Democrats to relinquish ground on several fronts.

Credit rating agencies have indicated that the state’s failure to compromise will lead to yet another downgrade; Power Ball and Mega Millions have threatened to drop Illinois from its roster of participating states. But the issue we’re most concerned about is safety. More people are expected to road trip this summer with gas prices remaining low. On top of that, we’re in the midst of the most deadly and dangerous travel seasons of the year, as newly licensed teenagers, take advantage of the opportunity to hit the road during the hot summer months.

In other words, the delay of construction or any other matter pertaining to the safety of highways and interstates could lead to even higher traffic casualty rates than expected. Few things are more to state government than protecting its citizens. Let’s see if the state can put the partisan politics aside and do just that.