'Hard To Say No': Elmhurst Mayor Prefers New Traffic Approach

ELMHURST, IL – Telling constituents no is difficult, so Elmhurst has pursued another way to deal with traffic problems in the last few years.

At Monday's City Council meeting, Mayor Scott Levin recalled the way that officials used to handle requests.

"It was quite frequent that a group of residents would come to the alderman in the ward and say, 'We need a stop sign at this intersection,'" Levin said. "It was pretty hard to say no, even if the answer really should have been no."

Aldermen, he said, would hold hearings and have a lot of debate.

"The neighbors would pack the audience," an apparent contest to see how many people showed up to speak, the mayor said.

A few years ago, the city started doing area-by-area traffic studies, performed by an engineer.

"I'm a very strong advocate of these neighborhood studies. We apply things uniformly," Levin said. "We are getting something that is objective."

The mayor spoke after an alderman suggested stop signs could be used to control speed. Research has shown that stop signs are ineffective in reducing speeds. Too many stop signs may result in drivers speeding between them or ignoring them entirely.

"Stop signs are not intended to control speed," Levin said. "We have other tools if we have speeders."

With the latest traffic studies, which were on Elmhurst's east side, the engineer recommended adding stop signs at 30 intersections without any stop or yield signs now.