A plan to turn Veterans Parkway into a safer, more pedestrian-friendly road has nearly finished a large step to make that a reality.
The Reinvent Veterans Parkway Corridor Plan is currently in its public viewing stage before it can receive final approval. You can review it now.
It includes ideas which will be reviewed by the Illinois Department of Transportation [IDOT] before any possible construction or renovation could begin. Plans include speed limit changes, intersection redesigns and more.
The plan is headed by the McLean County Regional Planning Commission [MCRPC] and senior transportation planner Jennifer Sicks.
Sicks said before taking on the large project, MCRPC was well aware that Veterans is the most dangerous roadway in Bloomington-Normal. According to the commission, the road averages one crash a day.
“People speed, which is a much more serious problem than it seems on the surface, and it has an incredibly high crash rate compared to the rest of the town, and so we know going in that was something we wanted to address as a problem,” Sicks said on WGLT’s Sound Ideas.
“Some of it has to do with the way the road is configured … and there were other aspects of how the roadway, what surrounds it, what leads into it were complicating the situation, and so we wanted to make that better, make it safer for everybody else.”
With the assistance of a consulting company gathering data and measurements and advice from IDOT engineers, MCRPC came up with recommendations to improve different aspects of Veterans Parkway after isolating problems.
Speeding
Driving too fast was one of the most pressing issues to address, though changing the habits of drivers can be difficult.
Perhaps what could be the biggest change, Sicks said, is changing the speed limit of the road.
“A slight lowering makes an enormous difference in accident rates and in crashes … and one possibility, and this will take a lot of study, and there will be a lot of screaming and yelling about it, is to take the speed limit from 45 to 40 miles per hour,” said Sicks. “Not that anyone goes 45 but still, that seemingly small change could make a huge difference."
It’s a difference of just a few minutes, she said. According to the plan, travel times would increase by approximately one to four minutes between Ireland Grove Road and Shepard Road.
“And as long as the road is configured, and it will be because this is part of IDOT’s theory, to move traffic along at a reasonable rate, most people wouldn’t even notice,” Sicks said. “Not many people are taking it end to end, but even those who are wouldn’t see a huge difference in the amount of time it takes.”
Another option to decrease speed involves a change that's more of a subconscious nudge to drivers: narrowing travel lanes from 12 to 11 feet.
“Basically, it’s a sense of openness that makes people feel like they can do what they want,” said Sicks. “We’re not making it impossible to drive, and it’s sized according to IDOT standards for highway traffic. It’s not unacceptable; it’s not extreme.”
She said it is a standard change to make to roads. If drivers are slightly closer to each other, they tend to pay closer attention.
“One of the sort of striking realities about all traffic problems is that there’s a human factor. People make mistakes; people misjudge,” Sicks said. “People make decisions in the spur of the moment that turn out not to be great, and so we have to kind of take that into account and look for ways to discourage losing attention and being distracted.”
Sicks said distracted driving is a top priority for IDOT.
Shared-use path
Veterans Parkway, among its other notable problems, lacks many opportunities for those not in a motor vehicle to access businesses along the corridor. Pedestrians and bicyclists are not an unseen sight crossing the six-lane highway.
The commission’s suggestion is a shared-use path, sort of like a sidewalk of its own along Veterans, Sicks said, for those pedestrians.
“But this would provide some access to people who don’t have or don’t want to use a vehicle, and have a bike or want to walk, and there would be a way for them to community with all of the businesses along the parkway,” she said.
It would adjoin the road on either side and keep the current curbs of Veterans intact.
“And that would get them out of any sort of intention of crossing in a weird way and give them access to what is the primary commercial corridor here in Bloomington-Normal,” said Sicks.
The 10-foot path would also be separated by a landscape buffer.
Sicks said the commission wants to avoid pedestrians being stranded in the medians of the road just to get to work or shop.
“But the other thing is that the intersection improvements would make crossing Veterans Parkway safer because the distance would be shorter because we’re narrowing the lanes a tiny little bit," she said. “And the way it would be timed would give people time to cross and time to cross on the cross streets as well, so that they are less likely to encounter a car that is not where it’s supposed to be.”
The commission’s report said installing the shared-used path would be a major improvement to pedestrian safety with a neutral impact for drivers.
‘Competing demands for IDOT’s time’
Sicks said IDOT has long had its attention on improving Veterans Parkway, which is under its jurisdiction. Their focus is the intersection of Route 9 and Veterans Parkway.
But between that intersection and the road entirely, there’s no telling when actual changes could start.
“There are so many competing demands for IDOT’s time, attention and available funding that it’s hard to know where they would put the priority,” said Sicks. “Now, they’ve been looking at the intersection [of Route 9] for a long time…they have since done work, and they’ve narrowed down their options to a handful, but they still have to make a decision."
And costly decisions must be made, she said, although IDOT has already helped to invest in the road's reimagining, contributing half of the study's cost of $675,000.
Sicks said she has no idea what IDOT will decide or change.
“First of all, it wouldn’t all happen at once, because it would be too complicated to try and manage that over time,” she said. “So, it would be done in stages. That would be up to our friends at IDOT to decide how they want to stage it.”
Sicks assumes IDOT would complete work when the time comes in discreet stages as best it could manage. As for funding, that is also uncertain.
“There’s actually funding in this document that talks about various sources of funding that might be available for a project of this type, and a lot of it’s federal. A lot of it isn’t,” she said. “There are various ways and means to make that happen, and some of this would probably require some congressional support, and we think that would be a possibility.”
If the commissions approves their own plan after the public viewing period, the Veterans Parkway Corridor Plan will be sent to the Federal Highway Administration in Washington. Sicks made clear the plan is recommendations they are advocating for, but the final say remains with IDOT.
Public viewing of the document ends Aug. 31.
