Henry Huizar, a 15-year old Chicagoan, stood at the intersection of Roosevelt Road and Lombard Avenue Monday evening, his eyes darting back and forth at the oncoming traffic. With just a flick of a button a mere foot to his right, some flashing lights would’ve started going off, theoretically parting the speeding cars like the Red Sea.
But Huizar didn’t see it. As a helpful reporter, I slapped the button and he sheepishly walked across the roadway. He wasn’t alone, as shortly after, a lady strolled out of the nearby Segreti Pharmacy and into oncoming traffic without a glance at Roosevelt’s new lighted crosswalk.
Oak Park, along with its southern neighbors Berwyn and Cicero, debuted the new devices earlier this month at the intersections of Lombard, Gunderson and Home. I ventured over to the east-west stretch for about 60 minutes during rush hour Monday to see whether travelers were taking to the lights.
Oak Park had tried something similar at Oak Park Avenue and Harvard years early, but scrapped it for a traffic light when cars kept zipping by.
Huizar said he hadn’t noticed the button and wondered why they hadn’t just put up a stop light. Minutes later, siblings Hector and Andrea Salcedo, of Cicero, fingered the button and crossed confidently, after a few cars whizzed by. Andrea, 16, said she uses the crosswalk all the time to walk to the train, but still “thinks they should install a stop sign though.”
Over in Segreti Pharmacy, 6144 Roosevelt, longtime owner Ken Bertini disagreed. Adding anything else would probably just back the street up further, which would be hard to imagine. He admitted there would be a “learning curve,” but said most pedestrians aren’t dumb enough to just hit the button and walk blindly into the mêlée.
“I think that most people that press it are smart enough to wait until somebody stops,” he said. “Otherwise you’re going to get flattened like a squirrel.”
A few blocks farther west, at Gunderson, there wasn’t much to take in, other than the intoxicating aroma of fresh bread wafting from Turano Bread’s factory. The corner felt somewhat more desolate, surrounded by a sleepy-looking condo building and a fenced-in fleet of bread trucks.
I pushed the little silver button, and the 10 lights embedded in the roadway, along with two over head, started flashing wildly. Nine cars dashed past before the light turned off. I tried again, and this time cars finally stopped, allowing me to make the crossing.
Minutes later, Tamika Taylor, 37, barreled south across the street, between two speeding cars, and entered the little bakeshop to buy some bread. After exiting, I asked why she hadn’t signaled for electronic help. “What crosswalk?” she replied.
She hadn’t noticed it, either, but used the lights to travel back north to her car. “I guess it is pretty neat — if it works,” she said. “They definitely need it at this busy spot.”
Even further west, I took in the last crosswalk at Home Avenue, surrounded by the new Culver’s, a dry cleaner, a Jewel parking lot and a seemingly abandoned bank development.
Eastbound traffic was backing up so severely from Oak Park Avenue that you almost didn’t need the magic button. A younger couple crossed without noticing it.
Francisco Reyes, 23, was finishing his evening jog and just ran up to the edge of the crosswalk without giving the device a glance. “I don’t use them at all. It’s just faster to wait for an opening,” he said, before sprinting across and heading to his home in Berwyn. I decided to do the same. That bread was making me hungry.