New Traffic Signals Planned to Manage Wrigley Congestion (MAP)

Traffic in Wrigleyville may soon get less congested as officials work on introducing more traffic lights and additional left-turn signals.

Ald. Tom Tunney’s (44th) office is working with the Chicago Department of Transportation and the Chicago Cubs to study the traffic around Wrigley Field. Preliminary plans suggest adding signals at the following locations:

• Clark and School streets
• Clark and Roscoe streets
• Clark Street and Waveland Avenue
• Irving Park Road and Seminary Avenue

Tunney’s Office Director Denise Poelsterl says the ward is always looking to improve pedestrian and vehicular traffic, with these new signals planned to move traffic more swiftly down Clark.

“It’s in a really preliminary stage, but Clark and Roscoe has historically been a very, very difficult intersection we needed to figure out,” Poelsterl said. “We’re just now starting the beginning of this process, looking at how we can improve both vehicular and pedestrian traffic and safety.”

Poelsterl says the move isn’t completely influenced by games at Wrigley Field, but it does have an impact. At the recent Wrigley Field Annual Meeting, representatives from CDOT said they implemented an “interconnect” system on Addison Street that moves traffic away from the ballpark swifter than before.

Now ward officials, who just received cost estimates for the program, are working on traffic and feasibility studies that will include the Cubs’ traffic studies. Using the findings, they hope to implement the same traffic system down Clark.

“A number of years ago, the Department of Transportation and Federal Department of Transportation came up with this interconnect program, which is a plan that moves traffic in a more efficient manner,” Poelsterl said. “That way you’re not getting a red light, stopping, waiting, and moving to the next red light to stop and wait. Interconnect keeps traffic moving so you don’t stop and go. And it’s better for the environment.”

The intersections on Clark slated to get stoplights each have four-way stop signs, and some residents said they’d prefer to keep it that way. One Lake View resident at the annual Wrigley meeting said he didn’t think residents should be inconvenienced by traffic lights 365 days a year when the Cubs only play a fraction of those days.

Along with the new traffic lights, CDOT is already in the process of implementing left-turn arrows at Clark and Irving Park and Addison and Ashland. They’ve already been installed at Halsted Street and Belmont Avenue.

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