As an ongoing study seeks methods to improve the flow of traffic on Harlem Avenue and near other road closure points along the BNSF railroad, Riverside officials worry one set of proposed solutions would harm the village’s economy.
Thomas Murtha, a senior planner at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, presented an update to the village board on Thursday, Sept. 17, on the Berwyn-Riverside railroad grade crossing study, which got its start in 2019.
The study’s purpose, according to Murtha’s slide deck, which he shared with the Landmark over email, is to improve “travel time reliability, safety and mobility” for all methods of transportation along the BNSF corridor, from pedestrians and cyclists to motorists and emergency vehicles.
The study has progressed past the point of receiving input from members of the public, Murtha said, with researchers having collected over the past year public sentiment about the need for improvements and ideas for how to achieve them.
Murtha said the researchers are also looking for input from Riverside’s officials. While the formal public comment period ends on Friday, Sept. 25, Murtha said Riverside will be able to submit feedback after that point.
Village President Doug Pollock told the Landmark that a resolution will be compiled for approval at the board’s Oct. 1 meeting, expressing the collective of their opinions on the state of the study and the proposed solutions to traffic concerns on Harlem Avenue.
One of those opinions, which Pollock shared at the Sept. 17 meeting, is concern over the impact a possible road grade change — that is, the raising or lowering of the road to create an overpass or underpass, allowing traffic to flow as the BNSF train passes — would have on Riverside’s economy.
“A lot of the options, almost all the options, would include closing access [from Harlem] to Burlington and Quincy, which would have, in my opinion, a tremendous negative economic impact on the village,” Pollock said.
In an interview with the Landmark, Pollock expanded on his views.
“The problem with any type of underpass is, to get the right angles going into it to get underneath, you have to start way back, as far back as Addison” on the north side, he said. “That’s going to cut off parking and access for Riverside businesses on Harlem as well as on Burlington. I would imagine that the gas station at Quincy and Harlem could no longer exist if it doesn’t have access to Harlem. Likewise, our businesses on Burlington would be impacted, too, if that suddenly is a dead-end street.”
At the meeting, Murtha suggested keeping access to one of the streets as a compromise with the village while still finding ways to improve traffic flow on Harlem Avenue.
“One thing that we all want to know is whether the concern extends to both [Burlington and Quincy] or if we could keep one open, whether that would address the concern,” Murtha said. “One of the questions that we’ll have is, if we could keep Burlington open somehow, whether that would address the village’s concerns. With a potential development along the northern side of the tracks, that would be a little bit tougher, but, again, it’s a question that we would like you to think about.”
Pollock told the Landmark he would prefer to see options implemented that do not affect the grade of Harlem Avenue and its connectivity to Riverside’s arteries.
“It wasn’t on the materials we had on our [Sept. 17] agenda, but we’d seen it at one of their community meetings. They had one option that didn’t change the roadway grades at all. It was more about signage and timing of lights, things like that that would manage the traffic better without changing the foundational, fundamental roadway design,” Pollock said.
Village Manager Jessica Frances said construction and implementation of any of the proposed fixes to Harlem Avenue through the study are more than a decade away.
“I think Mr. Murtha said even some of the low-hanging fruit of the non-major construction items are at least five to 10 years out,” Frances said. “When you’re talking about the major construction, if something were to happen on Harlem Avenue, that’s more than 10 years out.”
The scale of the project has made it “challenging for us [elected officials] in a way” to engage with it, Pollock said.
“They’re looking out 10, 20 years, and as elected officials, our horizons tend to be a little bit shorter, but it’s been fine,” he said.
Frances said CMAP’s task has naturally taken on a longer timeline as it seeks to address issues that have existed for decades.
“It’s been a long process, and I think part of it was, there were starts and stops based on funding, based on staffing,” Frances said. “CMAP is tasked, like President Pollock said, with something very specific. It wasn’t the village of Riverside that reached out to CMAP and said, ‘Hey, how can we move traffic along?’ The issues on Harlem Avenue have been issues since the ’80s.”
