In this election year when repaving roads on the Northwest side has suddenly become important again (the last time any concerted effort to repave roads in this area was when Bart Peterson was running for a third term, so one naturally, if possibly unfairly, correlates sudden repaving activity with municipal elections and get out the vote efforts), there are a few other projects that the city has been back-burnering for quite some time that need immediate attention.
#1, Ditch Road between 79th and 71st Streets. Particularly just south of the 79th Street bridge, but also in spots north of it, there is quite a lot of vegetation growing out into the driving lane. This is not a new situation, this has been a problem for several years. A crew needs to come up and aggressively trim back the bushes that threaten to take the paint off the side of cars. Also, for some reason Ditch Road from 79th to Grandview has not been repaved for years, although other sections of Ditch Road have been. Try driving on this section of Ditch Road and let me know if your dental work survives. (I’d also add that the county used to clean out the opportunistic foliage from Howard Johnson Ditch every few years. The growth of mature trees and other trash vegetation in the middle of the ditch indicates that the county has apparently abrogated that responsibility for about the last decade or two. This increases the risk of areal flooding and it needs to be addressed.)
#2, Ditch Road between 86th and 71st Streets. The city needs to install sidewalks. There is sufficient pedestrian traffic along this very narrow corridor that pedestrians must needs walk in fear of their lives, and in some cases must walk with the flow rather than facing it, because at almost any given point one side or the other of the road either has no shoulder, is vegetated clear up to (or past) the roadside, or is guardrailled, and thus there is no place to safely walk.
#3, School Zone for Greenbriar School. This school zone is fantastically long compared to other comparable school zones in the city. It needs to be shortened up. And a traffic light is needed at Northbrook Drive, which would help slow traffic down to the school zone speed limit, as well as give people in the Northbrook community – who have only the single egress from their subdivision — a fighting chance of being able to make a left turn during busy periods. I don’t live in Northbrook, but I drive past there on a very regular basis, and I pity the residents trying to get in and out.
#4, Ditch Road at the south entrance to the Greenbriar and Northbrook shopping centers. BADLY NEEDED here is a traffic light and pedestrian crosswalk and signals. There are retirement apartments on the east side of Ditch Road, and its residents are constantly in danger of their lives when crossing the street to walk to the Marsh grocery on the west side of the street. In addition, it is difficult at just about any daylight traffic period to make left turns out of those parking lots, and the entrances in question are far enough from the light at 86th and Ditch to not cause a problem.
#5, Grandview Drive south of Kessler. Really? A complete rebuild of the road after sewer work, and you put it back EXACTLY THE WAY IT WAS? It needs widened, with real shoulders. By the way, the roadsides are already crumbling, and it’s only been a couple of years. And please consider putting a policeman at 54th and Grandview on Wednesday evenings at around 6PM so he can ticket the clot of cyclists who blow through that 3-way stop weekly at that time and otherwise make a mockery of the rules of the road.
It’s been my observation over half a century living here that the city loves to lavish money on wide and comfortable roads on three out of the four sides of the city, even in places where subsequent plant closings have completely negated the need for such lovely four- and six-lane divided highways. (Mostly I have Shadeland Avenue in mind.) The Northwest side always seems to be the red-haired stepchild when it comes to road improvements and making it easier for people to get around. There is no multi-lane east-west thoroughfare from 38th Street north until you get to 86th Street, and nothing north of there at all. There is no multi-lane north-south thoroughfare from Meridian Street west until you get to Michigan Road, and again, nothing west of there at all unless you count Zionsville Road and Lafayette Road — and I don’t, because Zionsville Road’s south end is at 62nd Street — and Lafayette Road is too far west to be useful for people who live in the denser areas to the east. Maybe it’s time to start taking a look up here on the Northwest side instead of elsewhere.