December 04, 2024
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New safety measures coming to Fox Chase Elementary

Oswego receiving state grant to pay for speed limit signs, flashing beacon

By Eric Schelkopf
Students get dropped off at Fox Chase elementary school in Oswego during the first day of the school year on Wednesday Aug. 16, 2023.

Oswego officials hope that speed limit signs and a flashing beacon will help improve safety on Mill Road and the nearby Fox Chase Elementary School. (David Toney for Shaw Local/David Toney)

Oswego officials hope that speed limit signs and a flashing beacon will help improve safety on Mill Road and the nearby Fox Chase Elementary School.

The improvements include the installation of school speed limit ahead signs, permanent speed feedback signs and a flashing beacon. The improvements will be made in both the westbound and eastbound lanes near the intersection of Mill Road and Lynx Lane/Washington Street.

A speed feedback sign measures the speed of approaching vehicles and displays the speed on a digital sign. The speed limit is 35 mph along Mill Road and goes down to 20 mph on school days when children are present at the intersection.

A school crossing guard helps children cross Mill Road on school days.

The village received an Illinois Safe Routes to School Grant in the amount of $32,350 that will help fund the improvements. Funding under the grant program is a maximum of 80% federal dollars with a minimum 20% local match. The federal share is capped at $25,880, with the village share’s being $6,470, plus any cost overruns.

At the Sept. 17 Oswego Village Board meeting, trustees unanimously approved accepting the grant.

Oswego Village President Ryan Kauffman said he is happy to see the improvements moving ahead.

“That intersection is probably the intersection I get the most resident concerns about, Mill and Lynx,” he said during the meeting. “There was a fatality there in 2021 and there’s been several near misses. It’s a dangerous intersection and the concern is not just that people go very quickly up and down Mill, but that the school is right there and the school kids have to cross that road. ... Anything we can do to kind of beef up that intersection in terms of safety and safety standards, taking it up to that next level, is well appreciated.”

The intersection of Mill Road at Washington Street, left, and Lynx Lane, right, in Oswego. (Shea Lazansky)

In July 2021, Oswego U.S. Army veteran Antonio Villarreal, 32, was killed by a motorist while he was trying to walk across Mill Road at Lynx Lane. The motorist later was cited for failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.