Dear Mayor Hoskins and Forest Park village commissioners,
I am writing to express my concern and opposition to the proposed QuikTrip gas station/market on the Oak Park (Southeast corner) side of Harlem at Garfield and to ascertain that you are aware of this commercial project that would negatively impact the public health and safety of residents of Forest Park as well as our friends and neighbors in South Oak Park.
I hope that once you familiarize yourselves with the particulars of this project (if you are not yet familiar) you will use your voices with your Oak Park colleagues to emphasize that approval of this commercial development would significantly increase risks to residents in three primary ways:
1. Traffic congestion/safety:
This is an extremely congested and dangerous intersection (as we are ALL aware) with folks, many of whom are very stressed, harried and hurried, working to enter and leave the Eisenhower Expressway. The potential increases for ‘fender benders’ and worse, as well as an extremely increased risk to the many pedestrians and bicyclists who cross at that corner, is enormous. Note: Oak Park school children walk to and from school near or at this intersection daily.
Putting a gas station with limited access (access/egress is proposed with one entrance/exit on Harlem approximately mid-point between Garfield and Lexington and one off Garfield approximately mid-point between Harlem and Maple) will serve to encourage aggressive, dangerous, and likely illegal driving behaviors that will put residents and all drivers at extreme risk.
Although the QuikTrip would be located in Oak Park, if a traffic accident occurs and a car (or bike or pedestrian) lands on the west side of Harlem, it becomes a problem for the Forest Park police, making it a practical issue as well as a humanitarian one.
2. Crime and security:
I probably do not need to review issues of drug trafficking and other illegal behaviors in the area around Harlem/Harrison both from the CTA Blue Line station as well as “visitors” from other areas of the Near West and further east who arrive by auto — not to mention the well-documented problems at the nearby Thorntons gas station.
At a meeting with QuikTrip marketers on Sept. 2 (at the 19th Century Club in Oak Park) they assured the assembled Oak Park and Forest Park residents that they would have security in the store. However, our concerns focus on what happens when unruly or criminally minded individuals flee or wander away into the surrounding neighborhoods.
3. Environmental impact/pollution:
The intersection in question already suffers from poor air quality due to extreme congestion from cars, buses, trucks, etc. The addition of off-fumes from idling cars in the station will only make the situation worse. With the new day-care center that serves families from both Oak Park and Forest Park, a further decrease in air quality should be of significant concern.
This Thursday, Sept. 11, the Oak Park Plan Commission will meet to review the (397 page) full proposal for a special permit for this development. Residents from Oak Park and Forest Park will be in attendance to oppose the facility.
Micki Leventhal
Forest Park