City officials said they would sit down and meet with representatives of the Cook County Senior Center after hearing safety concerns about their shared parking lot at council’s March 27 meeting.
Warren Anderson, chair of the Council on Aging which oversees the Senior Center, led the discussion. A number of Senior Center board members and staff also attended the meeting and joined in the conversation.
Anderson’s original reason for being on council’s agenda was to ask about a possible expansion of the First and Second Thrift Shop on a portion of their property now used as parking. Because the center’s parking area abuts the city’s municipal parking lot, such an addition would affect not only the Senior Center’s parking spaces, but those in the city’s section as well as traffic flow into and out of the lot and surrounding businesses.
Anderson said, however, that he was dropping his original request due to a board decision earlier in the day not to pursue the expansion plan. Instead, he said, the board voted to sign a lease and move the shop into the vacated corner portion of the Cobblestone Building – the building which currently houses the second-hand shop – as an alternative to a construction project. “It’s a good situation,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean there will never be an expansion of the building or other construction in the area, Anderson added, and he asked council to consider some measures to improve safety in the area before there is an accident.
Both Anderson and Senior Center Director Bev Green said it’s already a dangerous situation in the parking lot due to the high volume of both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The vehicles often travel through at a reckless and high rate of speed, and the elderly people going into and out of the building— many of whom use walkers or canes— are increasingly in danger of being run over, Green said. The two-way drive-through is wider than Broadway which lends to making it a street rather than a parking area.
Suggestions offered included installation of temporary speed bumps or other barriers (which could be removed in winter to facilitate snow plowing), addition of signs and closure of the entrance to vehicles altogether.
One suggestion council agreed to was placement of a “Bus Parking Only” sign along with painted blue lines on the curb in front of the Senior Center entrance. Green said the area used to be marked and designated as such before road reconstruction in 2005, but the lines and signs were never replaced. The signage will ease congestion in the parking lot by keeping the Arrowhead Transit buses and passengers out of the parking area.
Mayor Larry Carlson and City Administrator Mike Roth said they would set up a meeting with Senior Center board members and administrators and interested councilors to talk about possible safety improvements, and also to consider ways to more efficiently cooperate and manage the municipal lot, such as having the city’s staff do the snow removal in the whole area (currently the Senior Center pays for snow plowing on its small portion of the lot, while the city crew plows the majority of the area).
In other business:
. Council voted to direct City Attorney Chris Hood to begin work on a license agreement which would allow Cook County Higher Ed to encroach on and use city sidewalk space on West Third Street in the event a planned building expansion takes place. Higher Ed Director Paula Sundet Wolf said the building is in need of renovation, but to date the proposed work is only a concept; a more detailed plan will be presented to council upon completion. Roth said the agreement is similar to one the city signed with the co-op recently which allows use of the city’s right of way.
. At the request of Kristen Wharton, State Health Improvement Project coordinator, council will send a letter of support for the Active Living Steering Committee in the development of an Active Living policy. The letter states that the city council and staff will commit to participate fully in the creation of the policy, which will be a “guiding force” in the Highway 61 corridor design process and future Active Living projects. Wharton said 20 groups have applied for a Blue Cross/Blue Shield grant, and only five to 10 will be awarded; the Cook County group has been invited to go on with the next phase of the process due to its past success. The city support includes no financial obligation at this time, only support from the city’s staff and engineer.
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