Several months ago my family attended a well-attended meeting at the Levy Center where Evanston’s traffic czar, Rajeev Dahal explained the multi-modal traffic plan as it affects our Ward. A big part of his presentation concerned adding an eastbound right turn lane at the intersection of Oakton and Dodge. During that meeting, residents raised several concerns which all seemed to have no impact on Mr. Dahal’s idea of what needed to be done in our neighborhood. An abbreviated list of those concerns is as follows:

• The Dawes Elementary School is located at the Oakton/Dodge intersection and the safety of the children was called into question by residents. During this meeting, Mr. Dahal told residents there was no safety concern with the right turn lane, but was quoted in the Evanston Roundtable several weeks later stating that the Traffic Division had decided to NOT put a right turn lane back on Central Street after recent construction due to the fact that they are extremely unsafe for pedestrians.
• Residents who live on the street complained of an inability to exit their driveways safely due to high levels of speeding traffic. These residents have no other access to/from their homes as there is no alley in much of this area. For pedestrian and motorist safety, many residents thought it a good idea to add a STOP sign and/or lower the speed limit to a mandatory 20 MPH around the three schools and James Park from 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM, much the same as is done around ETHS.
• “If you build it, they will come.” The street has too much traffic and residents feel that putting in a right turn lane at the intersection noted above would be inviting additional traffic. Residents were of the opinion that many of the drivers are transient drivers who are using Oakton Street to cut through on their way into Chicago because they would prefer to avoid the Jewel/Best Buy/Target shopping center on Howard Street and residents are not inclined to be burdened with this transient traffic. The preference is to make the street safer and more pedestrian friendly.
• Residents discussed their inability to safely cross the street at any area other than the major intersections due to the speeding and high-level of traffic. Residents who live east of the Dodge/Oakton intersection expressed a wish to have bump-outs and crosswalks added much like the bump-outs and crosswalks employed at James Park.

The meeting closed with the residents feeling that Mr. Dahal heard none of our neighborhood issues and planned to move ahead with the multi-modal traffic plan already in place with no modification. It was an instance where residents felt that the City Government was once again not listening to us or working on our behalf. An instance felt all too often by residents in recent years.

Oakton Street is different from many of the other streets in Evanston in that it is home to three schools and James Park - a major park that is used for many children’s sports. It is also the feeder street for Ridgeville Park District and St. Francis Hospital. Due to the high amounts of traffic, I and many of my neighbors are again asking to have the speed limit reduced during school hours and we strongly urge the Traffic Department to save the city money by NOT adding a right turn lane at the intersection of Oakton and Dodge because the majority of residents do not want this. The revenue could be much better spent making improvements that residents would actually like to see. How about those bump-outs and crosswalks?