Solving Naperville’s Traffic Problem With More Traffic

Have you ever noticed that when government thinks something is a good idea, generally it’s not; at least not for the citizens. In the recent Naperville Satisfaction Survey, residents said there number one issue about city officials is that they haven’t addressed Naperville’s traffic problem. No matter where you are going, north, south, east, or west, traffic in Naperville can be miserable.

Less than one week after the survey was made public, the Naperville city council approved the massive high density Water Street Project for downtown Naperville. This is a 2.4 acre piece of land just south of the DuPage River and west of main street; basically a stone’s throw from city hall. It will contain a 166-room hotel, more than 70,000 square feet of of commercial space, and a 524-space parking deck.

With it comes a huge traffic dilemma, but city officials say not to worry, they’ll figure something out, sooner or later, sometime, maybe, could be, possibly.

It sounds eerily similar to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s directive to ‘pass the (ObamaCare) bill’ so we can see what’s in it’.

Hey it worked on the Federal level, so no wonder the city council thinks it will work in Naperville too.

The Water Street project undoubtedly will create a lot of winners including:

• Current business’s in that area will reap a huge profit in selling their property to the developer
• The developer will ‘make out like a bandit’ legally.
• Bars will have more potential drinkers, hence an increase in fines, lawyer fees, insurance claims, hospital admissions, funerals, and cemetery plots.
• And council members have the opportunity to ‘make out’ even better than the developer.

In time the project will be completed, the developer will be long gone, the property sellers will be elsewhere, the council members will be an obscure memory, but the horrendous traffic will endure.

Watch and listen as councilman Joe McElroy squeezes Naperville Director of Transportation Bill Novak for a straight answer regarding the project’s resulting traffic problem.

OK Bill, so what you are finally saying is that this is going to be a huge problem, so let’s make it happen sooner. Has anyone thought of just avoiding the problem, so that it doesn’t happen?

Now watch and listen to councilman Doug Krause, who voted against the project, as he spotlights the traffic nightmare.

The point councilman Doug Krause is trying to make, that his fellow council members can’t seem to understand, can be summed up with the following video.

Combine this with Naperville’s quest for electric vehicles running around downtown and you have a ‘made for Naperville’ movie.  And when you look up the definition of the word ‘chaos’ in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of the traffic flow in downtown Naperville.  Just in time for another Naperville Satisfaction Survey.