McHenry mulls how to improve safety at accident-prone Curran Road intersection where child was hit by car

When McHenry built out Curran Road at Dartmoor Drive 20 years ago, it anticipated that Curran would look different that it does today.

Back then, the city envisioned Curran as a bypass road, taking traffic off Route 31 and funneling it west of the city and to planned subdivisions there, McHenry’s acting director of public works, Russ Adams, said.

Then came the Great Recession and the housing bust, and McHenry did not get those anticipated rooftops. The intersection is now overbuilt and may be part of the reason more crashes occur there, Adams told the McHenry City Council this week.

“We have done everything in-house the city is capable of doing” in an attempt to make the intersection safer, Adams said, including flashing LED lights on pedestrian and stop signs, and lighting the intersection. There is a touchpad for pedestrians to hit that lights up a pedestrian crossing sign, warning motorists to stop for those crossing the road.

After a limited study in 2022 and seven crashes there in a three-year period, city staff recently asked consultant HR Green to perform a more in-depth study into the Curran-Dartmoor intersection.

One of those crashes, in December 2023, involved an 11-year-old McHenry girl who was struck by a pickup truck. According to McHenry County Court records, the driver passed another vehicle that had stopped for a pedestrian in the crosswalk.

The new study indicates the intersection does not meet the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices criteria for a traffic signal, and likely never will.

It does, however, meet the criteria for a four-way stop, Adams said. Blocking off right-turn lanes on Curran also could help with sight lines, making the street safer for motorists, he said.

Of the crashes there, 60% are from vehicles entering Curran from Dartmoor, Adams said. The right-turn lanes may block drivers from Dartmoor from seeing cars traveling just behind or parallel to those in the right-turn lane, he said.

“When a vehicle enters that right-turn lane, they create an obstruction,” Adams said. “The traffic lanes are obscured by the configuration of the intersection.”

McHenry could chose to put a traffic signal there, but that would come with a $500,000 price tag and no help from other funding agencies, Adams said. A roundabout could help, but that has a $4.5 million quote.

Instead of removing the turn lanes, the city could paint it with stripes and place traffic bollards to block them off. Removing the turn lanes also would reduce the distance pedestrians would need to walk in traffic lanes, staff engineer Greg Gruen said.

The council asked Adams to come back with various options and the prices attached to them. Whatever the city decides to do, it needs to be done to train drivers before the Route 31 expansion project gets underway.

“I have nightmares about what Crystal Lake Road is going be like, and I am sure a lot of [traffic] is going to overflow onto Curran, as well,” Alderman Andy Glab, 2nd Ward, said. Traffic is expected to be rerouted onto those roads when the Illinois Department of Transportation expands Route 31 to four lanes from Route 176 to Route 120.

“It warrants something, and it warrants it now and not a day before they start ripping apart [Route] 31, so people get used to it,” 7th Ward Alderwoman Sue Miller said.