Speeding along Millsdale Road in Joliet riles residents

Trucks aren’t the only problem on Millsdale Road in Joliet.

Residents along the route want help from the city in dealing with what they describe as crazy commuter traffic that is speeding, blowing stop signs and, in general, creating hazards for people who live along the route leading into the CenterPoint Intermodal Center.

“The minute those warehouse workers get out they are blowing the stop signs,” resident Meghan Fisher told the Joliet City Council at its meeting Tuesday.

It’s not a new problem. But it’s getting worse, Fisher said.

“I was T-boned there three years ago,” she said. “It’s horrible. No one slows down.”

Millsdale Road is one of the pathways off Illinois 53 into the CenterPoint Intermodal Center, one of the major employment centers of Joliet with an intermodal yard and warehouses for some of the biggest names in American business, including Walmart and Home Depot.

The road has become a source of controversy between CenterPoint Properties, which developed the industrial center, and NorthPoint Development, which plans to build warehouses that will feed off the intermodal yards.

“It backs up to get on Route 53, so guess where they go. They go through our neighborhood, and they fly through.”

—  Joe Jenkins, Millsdale Road resident

CenterPoint has won a court decision at least temporarily blocking trucks from new NorthPoint warehouses from using Millsdale Road.

In the meantime, the workers who continue to use it create traffic havoc for people who live in subdivisions along the road, residents say.

Joe Jenkins came to the City Council meeting Tuesday for a second time to plead for city action to impose some control over what he described as dangerous driving by workers using Millsdale to get in and out of the CenterPoint Intermodal Center.

“When I know someone’s coming to my house, I tell them to be very careful because the people do so much stupid stuff,” Jenkins said in an interview after the council meeting.

Jenkins described motorists driving through stop signs without slowing down, passing illegally, and speeding through neighborhoods along Millsdale to bypass traffic that lines up on the road during shift changes at the warehouses in the CenterPoint Intermodal Center.

He almost got in a fight with one driver after making an obscene gesture when the motorist blew a stop sign, Jenkins said.

Some of the worst problems develop when workers head to Route 53 on their way home from work once a shift changes, he said.

“It backs up to get on Route 53, so guess where they go,” Jenkins said. “They go through our neighborhood, and they fly through.”

Jenkins appeared alone at a previous City Council meeting urging city action, saying the hazardous driving poses a threat to safety. He was joined by neighbors Tuesday.

“Something needs to be done to at least slow this traffic down,” Fisher said.

One resident invited council members to her house “to see what we go through every day.”

Council member Susanna Ibarra, whose District 5 includes the CenterPoint Intermodal Center, acknowledged that there is a traffic problem at Millsdale Road and said she planned to take up the offer to spend time in the neighborhood to witness the problem.

“I know that it’s really bad there,” Ibarra said. “We are moving forward very quickly to try to do something.”

Ibarra did not say what the city may do, however.

Police Chief William Evans said he would need to consult with his traffic division to determine a course of action for Millsdale Road.

“We’re going to get on it,” Evans said. “But I don’t know right now what we’re going to do until I can talk with the traffic unit about what we can do to make this a better situation.”