Politics & Government

Brookhaven Merchants Wary of Proposed Cass Avenue Median

Plaza business owners met with DuPage county representatives Thursday to discuss possible impacts from the 75th Street widening project.

Georgia Tsakalakis has for 30 years gazed at the cars passing along Cass Avenue between Plainfield Road and 75th Street.

“Seven days a week, I watch the traffic,” she said. “There are never any accidents.”

At the intersections, yes. She’s seen crashes clog the ends of the block.

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But the area in front of the drive beside her restaurant, , that allows patrons to enter Brookhaven Plaza — that remains clear. 

So she doesn’t understand why officials from DuPage County say Cass needs a solid median bisecting the road.

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DuPage County representatives met with Brookhaven Plaza merchants and city officials Thursday at Pamy’s to discuss the median and its potential impact on the mall’s business.

The county has said the median, part of the long-term 75th Street widening project, will make Cass Avenue safer. 

By 2032 — 20 years from now — County Engineer Chris Snyder said studies predict northbound traffic turning left onto 75th Street could regularly back up as much as 400 feet onto Cass.

If Brookhaven customers want to turn left into the plaza halfway through the block, he said it could counteract the efficiencies produced by widening the 75th Street intersection.

It could also create a hazard — particularly if drivers try to pass the left turners by swerving into the right lane.

A median would prevent northbound drivers from making that left turn into Brookhaven. Many of the merchants, however, believe it would also deny customers easy access into their shops.

“It would kill us,” Tsakalakis said. 

Brookhaven landlord and property manager John Manos said that there have been six vacant storefronts for the past three-and-a-half years.

“We’ve tried to do as much as we can to get tenants,” he said. “A hard median on Cass would be working against us.”

Lorraine and Ed Lupa have owned for 28 years. Lorraine Lupa said the agency’s location has long been convenient for clients.

“People just want to go where they want to be,” she said. “If they’re going somewhere, they just want to go in.”

Snyder said the county would add signs authorizing U-turns, which would allow northbound drivers to double back onto Cass from the 75th Street intersection and turn right into the plaza. 

A newly created right-turn lane on 75th Street would include a sign cautioning drivers to yield to people making U-turns.

Glendale Heights has a similar intersection that Snyder said has functioned well for about 10 years.

But Ed Lupa said he doesn’t buy the notion that U-turns are less dangerous than allowing people to make a regular left turn into the plaza.

“I really don’t like the idea,” he said. “Having the U-turns would make it less safe.”

Like Tsakalakis, Lorraine Lupa said she's never seen an accident in front of the plaza on Cass.

The county is in the process of sifting through accident reports for the area in front of the Brookhaven drive, Snyder said. Over the next couple of months, the county also plans to analyze traffic to determine how many people enter Brookhaven from northbound Cass.

"We want to work with shopping center and with the city," Snyder said.

DuPage County Board member John Curran, who represents District 3, said those studies should be done by late March or early April. At the earliest, construction would begin sometime in 2014.

While most of the business owners at Thursday’s meeting spoke against the median, at least one saw it as a figurative bump in the road. 

owner and Brookhaven Merchants Association President Dan Widener said clients would adjust to the new configuration.

“People have been coming here for so many years,” he said. “They’ll still keep coming.”


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