advertisement

Residents question traffic changes in downtown Lombard plan

Traffic pattern changes and the availability of funding were on the minds of Lombard residents and business owners during a presentation Tuesday night detailing a revised version of the village's downtown redevelopment plan.

Village staff and consultants presented the plan to the public for the last time before Nov. 18, when it tentatively is scheduled to go before the village board, Bill Heniff, community development director, said.

“We're not making a village of Lombard plan, we're developing a community plan,” Heniff said to the crowd of about 40 people in Helen Plum Memorial Library's auditorium.

The plan addresses streetscape improvements, traffic pattern changes, a logo for downtown signs and several sites for possible redevelopment.

The ideas aim to make downtown Lombard more pedestrian-friendly, said Kon Savoy, principal of Teska Associates, an Evanston-based consulting firm that prepared the downtown plan.

One way to increase pedestrian comfort is to implement “road diets,” which reallocate road space, sometimes leading to wider sidewalks and fewer lanes for cars, said Cindy Fish, who prepared the transportation section of the plan. Officials mentioned Main Street, a north-south road, and Michael McGuire Drive, which angles northeast and southwest along the Chicago and Northwestern railroad tracks, as locations where lanes of traffic could be decreased.

“I'm very concerned about you talking about narrowing Michael McGuire Drive. That's the delivery space for all of us (downtown businesses) now,” said Betty Shissler, owner of Punky's Pub at the corner of Michael McGuire Drive and Park Avenue in downtown Lombard.

The village will execute traffic studies to determine whether narrowing streets like Michael McGuire Drive is feasible, Fish said. Any changes to roadways and sidewalks would be made to turn downtown into a true destination, she added.

“You want to feel like you're arriving some place, not just blowing through,” Fish said.

Colleen Whittington, publicity chair for Lombard Town Centre, an organization dedicated to promoting the village's downtown, said she wonders where money for the projects will come from.

The village's capital improvements fund will supply some money, Heniff said, but downtown will not be improved without private investments from business owners.

“The village of Lombard cannot implement this completely on its own that would require acquiring every single piece of property,” Heniff said.

Consultants will make changes to the plan before presenting it to the village board, but Savoy said he believes resident concerns about funding and fewer lanes for cars largely have been addressed.

“I haven't heard anything yet that would cause significant changes,” Savoy said.