The not-so-merry-go-'round

The City of Elgin is selling the idea of a traffic circle at Dundee and Summit on the east side. Price tag: $3 million, but 75% of it is free money(federal). At least that's how the city fathers see it. Taxpayers see it as us paying all of it one way or another.

In these parts the only comparison is the Golf Road/Wolf Road roundabout in Des Plaines. The locals call it "the suicide circle." And it moves a great deal of traffic during the day. But at rush hour it clogs up because of the signal a third of a mile south on Wolf.

And when it clogs up, it blocks all the other spokes on the wheel. That's what traffic circles do.

This circle is different than the one proposed in Elgin. For instance, look at the curbed median planted in grass. The Des Plaines circle has that feature on three of the spokes. It serves to keep traffic moving by preventing left turns.

Another difference in Des Plaines is the nature of the surrounding area. It is almost entirely homes. There are a couple of light commercial establishments (doctors offices) and a long stretch of the back of an industrial site. The rest of the area is homes.

Now, the Elgin project.

A circle works because people want to get out of it as quickly as possible. The secret is that they need to have somewhere to go when they exit the circle. Those streets need to keep moving or the circle clogs up.

The Elgin circle has a number of busy retail distractions just as people are trying to get off the circle. McDonald's, the BP gas station, CVS pharmacy, Dunkin' Donuts (if it ever re-opens). Imagine rush hour as people are trying to get to work. They get in the circle and back-ups are created by people stopping for gas, coffee, a donut, their dry cleaning.

The second issue is eastbound travel on Summit. They have created a double bottleneck in the design. They narrow it to one lane and they insert this point in the circle. Has anyone told the fire department about this?

The third issue is that some people will avoid the circle, turning off into neighborhoods instead. Two of those neighborhoods contain schools and a youth center. Sheridan Elementary and the Boys' Club are located in one neighborhood. And Larsen Middle School is in the other.

Anyone familiar with the area knows that the streets are already narrow and have about all the traffic they can handle already. Do we really want people cutting through those neighborhoods?

I just don't understand this project. The big problem is people turning left into businesses located at or near the corner. The circle ignores that problem and creates three new ones. But don't worry, folks. The circle is designed to make them low-speed accidents.

The OTHER Elgin House Walk

What a great day for the Elgin House Walk. Perfect weather to look at the pastel colors of the painted ladies, gew-gaw dripping from the eaves. Inside, a beautiful array of rugs, oak trim, and stained glass.

But here's a tour of the other Elgin.

A matress ready for adding an apartment in the basement.

You can't really call it an apartment without a stove.

And here we have some moldy paneling, 2x4s, and a door.

All of the above items pulled out of the house next door as the neighbors moved away.

Former owners had installed a nice patio, complete with the gas grill and furniture. After a couple of years of parking cars on it, and with weeds taking over, it's not so nice now.

But the patio matches the rest of the landscape now. It hasn't been mowed for a couple of months now.

Look at the cool mini-blinds. Maybe the space heater was set a little too high. It doesn't add much to the curb appeal.

But there's plenty of free parking in back. Three cars in the driveway PLUS two SUVs in the garage.

Call now! This one won't last.

Now, here's a little pedigree of the place. (Source: Kane County Recorder -parcel # 06-12-479-019

JT owned it for years and years. He lived alone. Didn't invest much in the place but he kept the lawn mowed and didn't put much wear-and-tear on the place.

Then JT sold it to Steve and Debbie in March of 2001. They owned two dogs and cat but weren't any trouble at all. They fixed up the place. She planted flowers and hedges. He installed the patio. And inside it was nice as well.

In January of 2006 Steve and Debbie had a house built out in Gilberts and moved away. The new owners were Raymond Ruiz, a single man, and Rodrigo Vargas, a single man. But one of them never lived there.

In February of 2007 Felipe Reyes bought the place.

In August of 2008 a foreclosure was filed.

All that time, until Labor Day 2009 the house was occupied. Sometimes by five adults and sometimes by only two. But someone has always lived there and they all went somewhere during the day, presumably to work.

A couple of months ago they took to leaving the windows wide open day and night. I'm guessing our wet summer got inside the house and made it smell like a locker room.

The for sale sign has been up for well over a year now. Who knows if it is even inhabitable at this point.

I keep thinking I should call it in to the city to at least get someone over to cut the grass. Then again, if they can catch me parking on gravel with six inches of snow on the ground, I'm sure they'll notice the weeds. Or will they?

On the Trail September 12th

It would have been great to stand on The Mall in Washington and rally for a return to America, but not everyone can afford the trip.

But the spirit of patriotism was alive and well along Randall Road today as we held our own protest on the state of things.

We had signs about

*ACORN

*Obama's czars

*Congressmen hiding from the voters

*Immigration enforcement

*Taxation

*Cap and Trade

*and of course Universal Health Care

People driving by responded thus:

*Most ignored us (sigh)

*Many honked their horns

*Many more gave us the thumbs up

*A very few (1o in two hours) gave us another finger

It is encouraging that some of our group had never been motivated enough to carry a sign for any cause. And a few cared enough to stop for more information.

Just up the street was another group in front of the Burger King.

I'm interested to hear how the other sites did today.

Thanks to all who joined with us.

Elgin is green...

…only when it wants to be!
(Or, Paver Madness)

Take a trip down to city hall, but first check out your own curb and sidewalk.

When you get down to Dexter and Douglas you will notice brick pavers all over the place.

Pavers at the intersections

Pavers at the curb

Pavers for a driveway to the parking terrace.

Wait, weren’t we spending $100K (down from an original request of $500K) to “go green”?

Surely someone must realize what a brick paver really is. I guess not. Let me clue you in.

Bricks are made of clay. Clay that must be dug out of the ground. They call it “strip mining.” (That can’t be good.) To strip mine the clay they must remove everything growing on top of it, along with the topsoil. The clay is in a thin layer spread over miles so off comes all the vegetation and topsoil.

Then they truck the clay to a manufacturing plant. And they truck in shale as well. The two are mixed together and formed into bricks. And then they COOK the bricks. At 2000 degrees. For 30 hours. Imagine the energy used in that process!

Then they bundle up all those brick pavers and ship them over 800 miles from North Carolina to Elgin.

Then some workers who don’t speak English (Really, they don’t. I talked to them.) pound them into the sand and cut them with a water saw. Lots of cuts to make that herringbone pattern.

But we’re saving on concrete, right? No, we aren’t. The pavers are laid on a bed of cement.

But those bricks are durable. They’ll last forever. But that doesn’t mean they’ll lay flat for very long.

Which makes it hard to shovel the snow.

Speaking of snow, with pavers there are seams every few inches. And snow and ice get down in those seams causing the bricks to pry loose after a couple of years. Look at the decorative gateway median at the tollway and Route 25 for an example. They are up and down, sinking and tilting.
All in the interest of making downtown Elgin look like The Streets of Woodfield or Deerfield Commons. There are a couple of problems with that concept:
1) Have you noticed all the vacancies at those outdoor malls?
2) Didn’t we try that already in downtown Elgin? A couple of times?
3) The upscale stores that are attracted to such malls are looking for two things – High income per capita and traffic. Elgin has neither.

Now, some of the pseudo-green bunch will say “drainage.” Those pavers allow for drainage. Not when they are sitting in a cement pan.

And another thing. They are tearing up sidewalks at the Centre that are only seven years old just to redecorate. And thirteen-year-old sidewalks in front of the police station. That doesn’t sound very friendly to Mother Earth.

Nor does it sit well with Elgin citizens who are looking at curbs and sidewalks that are 40 years old and crumbling.

Fix the problem of raw sewage in the basements downtown and skip the expensive facelift.

Liberty Trail

Please join us in protesting big government and big deficits.

From Crystal Lake to Aurora patriots will be lining Randall Road next Saturday, September 12th. Will you be one of them?

Contact Doug for details. E-mail afla.heaton@sbcglobal.net

See you then.

The Liberty Trail Website
http://www.libertytrail9-12.com/apps/links/