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Council approves infrastructure contracts; staff says Route 38/Towne Road signal does not meet IDOT warrants
Summary
The West Chicago council approved multiple infrastructure resolutions on March 16, including pavement and signal installation projects, while staff and councilors discussed long-running safety concerns at the Route 38 and Towne Road intersection and said state traffic-warrant analyses did not justify a stoplight.
The West Chicago City Council on March 16 approved several consent-agenda resolutions covering pavement preventative maintenance, concrete maintenance and traffic-signal work tied to Illinois Route 38 projects, and awarded a base bid for community-park work. Council also took up a separate public safety discussion about the Route 38 and Towne Road intersection.
Council read the consent agenda that listed multiple resolutions authorizing contracts for projects including pavement preventative maintenance, a concrete maintenance program, and a park project bid for a West Chicago community park. Several items were pulled for clarification and then approved as corrected.
During discussion of items 8g and 8h—pavement preventative maintenance and a companion traffic-signal item—residents and several aldermen urged additional safety measures at the Route 38/Towne Road intersection. One resident asked whether annual traffic studies could be performed; an alderman asked whether the state would allow any signal without a traffic warrant.
City staff member Mr. Patel explained the procedural limit on installing a signal on a state highway. "In order for us to install any kind of traffic signal over there ... it has to be traffic warrant analysis," Patel said, and noted warrant analyses were done in 2010, mid‑2010s and in 2025. "And all 3 times, it does not meet the traffic ... There's not enough north–southbound traffic to meet the traffic warrants," he said. Patel said the crash analyses reviewed did not meet the threshold to require a signal and that a variance or appeal process would be unlikely to succeed given the current counts; he said the city will reconstruct Towne Road between Illinois 38 and Forest Avenue this year to add channelization and a dedicated left-turn lane to improve operations.
Councilors acknowledged rear-end collisions and off-road single-vehicle crashes in the corridor but noted staff told them many recorded incidents are not intersection- related or are recorded at the nearest intersection in crash datasets. The council asked staff to collect and review specific accident reports if members have concerns for follow-up with the police chief and traffic staff.
After discussion, the council approved the companion resolutions for the pavement and traffic-signal-related funding by roll-call vote. The council also approved a supplemental amendment for preliminary engineering services related to downtown modernization; councilors emphasized the amendment funds engineering and scoping only and does not automatically add the proposed items to the project without future approvals.
Staff and council members said they would revisit traffic counts after the Towne Road reconstruction and pursue further analysis if conditions change.
