Red Light Cameras Part 3: Brutal Honesty, Please

In parts 1 and 2 you should have gotten a crystal clear understanding that safety and red light cameras, RLC, are not connected. Communities are removing them as others are putting them in. The ones that are pulling them out are doing so because the facts and evidence don’t support the claim that RLC make people safer.

It’s always about the money

Red Light Cameras Part 2: Not So Safe

The insurance industry, and the Red Light Camera (RLC) suppliers them selves lobby hard and long to get RLC put up wherever they can. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a front 100% funded by insurance companies, puts out reports that purport to show how RLC increase safety at intersections.

It ain’t about safety. RLC actually contribute to more accidents and more injuries.

Red Light Cameras Part 1: Smile

This is a spy red light camera. It takes pictures of cars that run red lights. Take a good look, and start taking a look around.

Illinois’ state lawmakers voted in 2006 to allow the devices, and the move toward red-light cameras has been gaining momentum ever since.

At the June 17th council meeting, commissioners asked for preliminary information from staff about red light cameras. Commissioners cautioned that this was just a first look, just asking for information from staff, as if anticipating resident backlash.

Indeed.

Traffic Calming: The Power of the Whiteboard

Tonight council approved sweeping simplifications to the traffic calming ordinances and to the processes residents must go through to get village help in their neighborhoods; help to combat drivers that drive too fast down residential streets.

Unlike the recent updating of ordinances, definitions, and language undertaken singly by the Planning Department, Acting Village Manager Dave Fieldman and Assistant Village Manager Mike Baker, along with Interim Public Works Director Robin Weaver and her department, the Planning Department, Police Department, Village Attorney Enza Petrarca, and others, all huddled around a whiteboard and hashed it out.

County Press Release: ‘Seperation’ Moves Forward Updated with Village Press Release, Spellchecked!

DuPage County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom showed a bit of why it is good to be king, and how he can help the cities and villages of the county. It was King Bob that called the meeting before the ICC meeting to hash it out with local pols, IDOT Secretary Milt Sees, DG key players, and pulled everything together for Sec. Sees to make the final commitment.

Having done all the legwork diligently for so many years, and being a project ready to go didn’t hurt, but it serves as a reminder of the power wielded by a county board chair.

IDOT To DG: Belmont Underpass IS A GO!!

Council Commissioner Geoff Neustadt just called me.

“Plan B” worked!

In a meeting earlier today, members of the ICC, METRA, IDOT, county and DG, along with elected local downstate officials (don’t know who yet) sat down and IDOT hashed it out fast and sweet. They have almost all the cash, they want the project turning dirt ASAP, they are in. The balance, maybe $200,000 will be coughed up a bit here and there by other parties.

Update: IDOT ponies up the full funding. $8.3 million was what the parties figured as the actual gap.

After 10 years of effort, finally the work can begin.

Belmont Underpass Plan B

Last night Mayor Sandack announced the Belmont Underpass Plan B, where he and AVM Fieldman and VA Petrarca will try and assemble area elected officials from the IL house and senate (Dillard Pihos, Bellock, maybe others), county officials (Schillerstrom and staff, and maybe our county board members from 2&3), as well as officials and staff from IDOT to try and hash out the extra $8.5 million needed to start construction on the Belmont Underpass.

We have some things working for us.

Claremont Calming Coming Closer

Claremont/71st Street is a clean shot from Cass in Darien to Main in DG, a nifty bypass of hectic 75th Street. Cars zip back and forth all day with only a few stop signs. Zipping is the problem for residents who live on the street. Posted speed limits of 25-30 MPH are pretty much ignored; obeying them risks an angry tailgater that wants you the hell outta the way. Residents of both DG and Darien have asked for help. In Darien, a temp speed bump was installed last year, removed for winter so the snow plows didn’t trash it, and it was reinstalled recently.

DG purchased a similar product, and as soon as a few needed steps are taken, it can be installed somewhere on Claremont in DG. It looks like the purchased traffic speed table (a more effective, wider device shown on the right) will go in somewhere on Claremont in about thirty days.

‘Traffic Czar’ Bill Wrobel has campaigned patiently and continuously for traffic calming devices on streets with speeding drivers that more resemble raceways. Prairie Avenue is another candidate for calming devices. I thought asphalt was the way to go, but more and more, rubber removable devices are being employed by municipalities because they can be moved around as needed, and are not a permanent addition to the street. Council member Sean Durkin first brought back information on the temporary rubber devices last year, and has, along with Wrobel, championed their use.