Solution for Crash-Heavy Hinsdale Block Proposed

Hinsdale village trustee Chris Elder joked during a June 24 Zoning and Public Safety (ZPS) Committee meeting about what might help the west side of the 100 block of South Washington Street that saw three vehicles overrun parking spaces and crash into buildings earlier this year.

“You don’t want to hang tennis balls on strings?” he asked village staff members.

Joking aside, officials are taking action to curb the phenomenon.

Elder and the three other ZPS trustees gave their unofficial support to a proposal presented at that meeting to move parking meters on the 100 block so that they line up with the middle of each space and provide drivers pulling in a “visual queue” to stop before running over the curb, in the words of director of economic development Tim Scott.

The proposal was the least intrusive of seven possible solutions proposed by Scott. Others included the purchase and placement of different combinations of planters, iron bollards and masonry bollards on the block, which would be features unique from the rest of downtown.

ZPS trustee Bill Haarlow said the bollards would change the consistent feel of downtown, and planters would be high-maintenance.

“I would say let’s try to keep it simple and see if that works,” Haarlow said in supporting the meter-shift.

ZPS colleagues Kimberley Angelo, Elder, and Bob Saigh all agreed.

Moving the meters, Scott said, would require the placement of several new poles, as meters currently share poles in between spaces. It would also require re-striping and would result in the loss of one space.

Scott said the next step is providing a cost estimate, which he didn’t anticipate would come in terribly high.

“That pipe wouldn’t be too expensive to put in, and re-striping shouldn’t prove to be too expensive,” he said.

Between Feb. 21 and March 25, three drivers ran over the curb while parking in the 100 block and crashed into two different storefronts—Steinway Piano Gallery and the empty Zak’s Place space. Those incidents raised the total number of car-on-building crashes on that block to eight since 2001.

Chief Brad Bloom of the Hinsdale Police Department continues to be baffled.

“For some reason the frequency has just increased the last two years,” Bloom said. “I can’t explain why.”