Evanston Police say Main Street remains blocked between Michigan Avenue and Sheridan Road after an early morning traffic accident that left a pedestrian critically injured.
Police say the accident occurred about 5:10 a.m. Thursday. The elderly male pedestrian suffered a head injury and was transported by a Fire Department ambulance to St. Francis Hospital.
Police say the NORTAF Major Crash Assistance team has been called to the scene and drivers who use Main Street to get to Sheridan Road will need to find an alternate route, at least through the morning rush hour.
As a resident who lives near that intersection, I can attest that vehicle traffic commonly treats stop signs as if they said “pause,” or “slow down” as one passes through the intersection. I’ve almost been hit while in the crosswalk across the street from Lincoln School. Three times.
A potential solution to our city budget woes would be to pay for the expense to hire traffic enforcement officers to be stationed nearby & hand out driving citations for failure to stop. There would be enough revenue to pay their salaries and contribute to the general fund for the city.
Agree. I live on Forest Ave across from Lincoln School. People drive entirely too fast.
In other suburbs with high-traffic intersections, I’ve seen “Stop Means Stop” signs added to the existing stop signs, and still other cities that have put flashing lights around the word “Stop.” I wish very much that Evanston could at least do one or both of these in the high-traffic intersections with Stop signs. It’s just a one-time expense, and it might help.
I live a block away on Forest where the stop signs are routinely ignored. I walk the dog that time of the morning and only one in 10 cars actually stop at the signs. Before I get hit, I’ll probably die from fury about how dangerous they make the neighborhood, especially for the kids going to school in the subsequent hours.