'We Need To Pump Brakes' Before Heading Into Roundabout Construction, Village Trustee Says

NORTHFIELD, IL — A long-planned roundabout aimed at improving traffic flow and pedestrian safety on Happ Road at its five-legged intersection with Orchard Lane and Walnut Street will be the subject of a special town hall meeting next month at Village Hall, officials said.

Business owners and residents in the 6,000-person village have raised concerns about the project, the planning for which began eight years ago.

Village officials plan to have a meeting at 6 p.m. Sept. 10 at Village Hall to answer further questions from the public about the project, which is currently scheduled to be bid out as early as September 2025 with construction as early as 2026, according to Brennan.

"Frankly, it's easy to understand why people are going, 'Well, wait, what's going on?'" said Village Manager Patrick Brennan.

"This started in 2016 with a previously constituted village board," Brennan said last week at a committee meeting. "There was a bunch of mailings and public meetings and blue ribbon committees put together to work on this project, but as far as the public perception of what's active, it's been since 2020 since this previously constituted group had a public meeting for the residents."

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The village manager explained that Happ Road is owned by Cook County, but village is technically the "lead" on the project to allow for federal funding for 70 percent of the project, saving taxpayers money but complicating the leadership of the project, because the Federal Highway Administration grant money has to be administered through the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Brennan, the former Kenilworth village manager, started on the job in Northfield earlier this year, although the village board continues to pay the salary of its former village manager, who accepted a payout in exchange for promising not to sue it.

Trustee Barnaby Dinges said he reviewed some of the materials from the study for the Happ Road project and said that previous group had selected the largest, most expensive and most costly to parking of all the potential intersection designs.

"People have reasonable questions about a big project that could forever change the look, feel and interaction of our downtown," Dinges said. "So, close your eyes and imagine 10 years from now — this roundabout is happening out there, and maybe it's a benign thing and it's a good thing, but it could be significantly damaging to this village, not just in the short term."

According to village planning documents, the Orchard Lane roundabout would anchor the downtown, connect the nearby municipal parking lots with businesses, decrease response times for emergency services and increase pedestrian safety, among other benefits.

By reducing the number of potential vehicle and pedestrian "conflicts," roundabouts lead to 40 percent fewer crashes. And by reducing the speed of motor vehicles, any crashes that do happen are far less likely to lead to serious injuries or deaths.

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Currently, the intersection is configured with no stop signs for traffic on Happ Road but stop signs on Orchard Lane, Walnut Street. Signs warn pedestrians at the crosswalk that "cross traffic does not stop" at the intersection, located one block immediately south of Willow Road.

Last month, an 82-year-old Northfield woman was struck and killed by a black Mercedes SUV, whose driver failed to check the crosswalk as she pulled out of a driveway onto the nearby 300 block of Happ Road, according to police.

Dinges noted that the nearby Willow Road intersection is even more dangerous than the one slated to get a roundabout — and a fountain feature in the middle.

Urging people to read the documents from the Happ Road corridor study, the trustee said the village, as a whole, had yet to fully grapple with the question of whether the roundabout was too risky for the reward it might offer.

"I don't know where this will turn out, but I feel like we need to pump the brakes, learn more, listen more, and that's where we're at," Dinges said. "So I can't vote on more money for a project that might not be good for the village."