Bears stadium or not, Rolling Meadows considers shrinking nearby Kirchoff Road

With or without a neighboring Bears stadium and the traffic it could generate, Rolling Meadows officials have advanced a plan to reduce the number of lanes on a key city corridor less than a mile away from Arlington Park.

The 110-page Kirchoff Road Corridor Study calls for giving a milelong stretch of the five-lane thoroughfare a so-called “road diet.”

Currently two lanes of traffic in each direction with a turn lane in the center, Kirchoff would be altered by removing an eastbound lane and a westbound lane, and replacing them with on-street parking spaces. Protected bike lanes would be nearest to the curbs.

That would take place west of Meadow Drive, near the Jewel-anchored shopping center and city hall.

East of Meadow Drive in front of single-family homes, parkways would be expanded in lieu of on-street parking.

Glen Cole, the assistant city manager and community development director who served as point person to the consultant who developed the plan, said the reconfiguration aims to reduce driving speeds where more than half of drivers exceed the 35 mph speed limit. Road improvements also could reduce the frequency of accidents involving vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians; a car struck a person earlier this month, he said.

And reducing the 90-foot distance to get from one side of the road to the other — especially near the two schools on either side of Kirchoff — also would improve safety, Cole said.

Though among the city council members to give the study a favorable preliminary first reading vote last week, Alderwoman Stefanie Boucher raised concern with reducing Kirchoff from four lanes of traffic to two in light of “such a big unknown” — whether the Bears will or won’t come to the old racetrack, and what that could mean for traffic coming into and out of neighboring Rolling Meadows to the south.

“I understand we can’t put our plans on hold (not) knowing what’s going to be happening in Arlington Heights,” Boucher said. “But if we shut Kirchoff down to two lanes, and then eight Sundays a year we have thousands of cars coming through, are people going to be able to use our businesses in downtown Rolling Meadows? Or are we going to be hearing, ‘I can’t get to Jewel on a Sunday because the traffic is now backed up both ways.’”

Boucher believes Kirchoff could become a secondary exit off Route 53 for Bears fans trying to avoid backups at Euclid Avenue, and thinks new parking on a revitalized Kirchoff — as many as 185 proposed spaces — may even be seen as a more ideal and cheaper place to park.

Designed to handle 30,000 vehicles a day, the Kirchoff corridor long has been identified by elected officials and longtime residents as the city’s traditional downtown, even though the thoroughfare has suffered from commercial business decline — a Dominick’s grocery store and bowling alley were among the more prominent closures in recent decades.

Now, 10,000 vehicles pass through the area daily.

“If the Bears move, Kirchoff Road is not going to be 10,000 cars,” Boucher said. “We’re going to have more traffic. Are we going to be causing ourselves an issue through downtown if we have backups of cars?”

But the plan has the full-throated support of others on the council who see the roadway alterations as part and parcel of reviving the old downtown with a walkable, mixed-use town center district. The concept calls for buildings positioned closer to a narrower street, with public parking and better access and connectivity for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Alderwoman Karen McHale, who was on the steering committee for the Kirchoff study, said Rolling Meadows shouldn’t delay its planning amid the uncertainty of the former racetrack’s future. Even if the Bears complete the redevelopment concept presented in 2022 — but have since shelved — it could take a decade to come to fruition, McHale said.

“I’m not really interested in waiting to see what Arlington Park is going to do so that we can be stagnant,” McHale said. “I would like to see the corridor become something that people want to come to. … It will be a more attractive way to go and be and have a sense of place in the community, as opposed to: ‘This is a cut through to get to the Bears stadium.’ And I think if we sit on this to wait to see what Arlington Park does, we’re losing huge opportunities.”

Alderman Nick Budmats acknowledged the Kirchoff study isn’t perfect, but believes it’s a step in the right direction since the 2019 city comprehensive plan that also called for a town center has “languished,” he said.

He disputes that Bears traffic would go through the center of town, based on the experience of previous Arlington Million horse races at the former track, which attracted crowds of 30,000 or more. Cars that exited Route 53 at Kirchoff would go a block, then head north on Rohlwing Road, Budmats said.

A final council vote to adopt the study and include it in the city comprehensive plan is scheduled for March 25.

The city’s planning and zoning commission is set to discuss potential zoning rules for a new town center district on April 2.