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TRAFFIC MISERY
Edwards Boulevard is a heavily used roadway. Highway 120, a part of which is named Edwards Boulevard is commonly called simply ‘The Bypass.’ It’s used by many vehicles, especially those wishing to avoid Lake Geneva’s downtown traffic in the summertime and those headed down into Illinois. There’ve been problems with large semi-trucks since the road was completed, as many of the big trucks are using Highway 120 to avoid going through the weighing stations when traveling on the freeways or tollways. With all the new housing development on the east side of town, additional businesses, and the existent school traffic it can be a busy area at certain times of the day.
The recent traffic signal at Bloomfield and Edwards, which didn’t get installed very easily, has become does not have a lot of side traffic yet but higher traffic rates are expected. The next step for considering safer travel is have a discussion among city officials about the potential implementation of the might be the installation of a traffic signal at the Townline and Edwards intersection, located not far from the new Bloomfield light. The traffic study, at this point, hasn’t made a positive decision about another light as any kind of solution, particularly when the safety of the current road is sufficient to meet state and county standards. It’s the future that is in question for many citizens, however. Some Lake Geneva officials, along with some people at the county, have come up with the idea of reducing the speed along that stretch of ‘bypass’ road from its current 45 mph to 30 mph, in order to lower the incidence of accidents (although there are currently not that many accidents along that road’s entire distance). A speed reduction would need to be approved by more than just Lake Geneva, although Lake Geneva would need to become a major player and contributor in any effort to get a speed reduction approved.
Last week the finance, license, and regulation committee approved the idea and Monday night city council also approved. The next step would be to get the support of the county if anything is to be done. The City of Lake Geneva has not been notoriously effective in taking care of traffic problems by reworking current roads in and around the area. The part of Edwards Boulevard that goes by Home Depot, Target, and some of the other businesses just north of Walgreens was built several years ago to some success, but then the city rearranged the lanes and made a complete mess of things, as far as traffic safety is concerned. The traffic signal, horrid as it is, that Walgreens sits at the corner of, has been and remains a nightmare to navigate through, especially when summer comes and the tourists back up from the downtown area all the way to the turn off for Grand Geneva. Nothing has been done about that signal. The traffic lights up and down Main Street, highly expensive ‘automatic’ signals, are not properly programmed to work the way they were sold or intended. Nothing has been done about that situation since the lights were installed many years ago.
The city is also contemplating allowing the state to come into downtown Lake Geneva and tear Main Street up from one end to the other. Well, take a drive through Paddock Lake on Highway 50 sometime. Can Lake Geneva even survive such a major and time-consuming remake of its entire downtown area? Lake Geneva survives because of its Lakeside location, its usage of the lake facilities (like Gage Marine) and the success if its many small businesses. Lake Geneva, Town of Bloomfield, Town of Linn, the county, and the state do not play well together, and until that relations maze if solved it’s likely nothing will be done. Again.
