Granville Traffic Safety - Overview of Project and Community Engagement Process
IN THIS POST:
Introduction
Project Goals
Background
Overview of Proposed Design
Project Timeline
Community Engagement Overview
Next Steps
Frequently Asked Questions
INTRODUCTION
Granville is a neighborhood street connecting family, friends, and neighbors to schools, parks, trails, the CTA Red Line, and local businesses. However, the corridor is over-represented in traffic crashes and also sees much higher traffic volumes compared to other residential streets in Chicago.
To reorient Granville as a community street, we're working with the 40th and 50th wards as well as the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) on a traffic calming project. By slowing down vehicles on Granville, the project aims to improve safety and accessibility, prevent injuries, and ultimately save lives.
The full project scope spans from Kedzie to Sheridan with the stretch of Granville east of Clark located in the 48th ward.
PROJECT GOALS
Reduce non-local vehicle trips on Granville.
Encourage slower & predictable speeds for the safety of everyone.
Better organize Granville to accommodate all uses.
Enhance accessibility to support all the ways people travel on Granville.
BACKGROUND
Granville has the top 10% of crashes for local neighborhood streets in Chicago.
Granville sees a disproportionately large share of traffic crashes and injuries compared to surrounding local neighborhood streets.
Vulnerable users are disproportionately harmed in crashes on Granville.
Over half of all pedestrian and bike crashes in the neighborhood are on Granville.
Most serious injury crashes on Granville are caused by drivers not from the neighborhood.
Granville sees higher vehicle traffic than that of a typical residential street.
according to data from the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT).
OVERVIEW OF PROPOSED DESIGN
Traffic calming/pedestrian safety elements at seven intersections
Short one-way conversions to discourage non-local traffic
New speed humps on 11 blocks
Refreshed crosswalk markings
Replace missing corner clearance signage
Bike route pavement markings and signage
For more information about the design, review the meeting posters from our February 2025 meeting here. All relevant materials are linked on this page under “Events.”
PROJECT TIMELINE
There is a sense of urgency to improve traffic safety on Granville.
Construction is scheduled to coincide with CPS summer break in 2025.
We will continue to communicate construction timing and updates as we receive them.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT OVERVIEW
First Community Meeting - October 15, 2024 at Misericordia: At this in-person meeting, alders and CDOT’s Complete Streets team presented background information and introduced preliminary design ideas. After the presentation, attendees had a chance to ask questions allowed before writing feedback on post it notes to stick to physical presentation boards in the room.
See all materials from this meeting on the project page under Events.
See our initial announcement of this meeting on our blog here.
Second Community Meeting - February 13, 2025 on Zoom: CDOT’s Complete Streets Team presented a revised plan for Granville Traffic calming based on community feedback.
See all materials from this meeting, incuding a recording, on the project page under Events.
This event was announced in our newsletter and on our community calendar.
Throughout this process, neighbors were invited to share feedback with our office and with completestreets@cityofchicago.org.
Based on this feedback, the Complete Streets team developed an FAQ, reviewed the designs with schools located on Granville, indentified specific locations for traffic calming, and refined their design of all major intersections to better accommodate emergency vehicles.
During this process, CDOT continued to track crashes and injuries on Granville. Between the first and second community engagement meetings, Granville saw 63 crashes, 14 people injured, 16 hit and run crashes
Our office heard from hundreds of 48th ward neighbors about this project.
Roughly 76% of people expressed support at the October community meeting, saying things like:
The data presented confirms my experience using Granville.
Cars don’t stop at the stop signs.
I don’t feel safe travelling on Granville with my family.
I was hit by a car while travelling on Granville.
My child was hit by a car while biking to school on Granville.
I first thought the one-way changes were too aggressive, but after spending time watching traffic on Granville, this seems like the only way to make Granville safer.
NEXT STEPS
Our office, CDOT, and the 40th and 50th wards are committed to improving traffic safety on Granville this year. Construction for this project is tentatively scheduled to begin in the Summer 2025, and will coincide with CPS summer break to minimize disruption for schools. Once construction is scheduled, we will update the community with a timeline and weekly updates.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q. Why are there so many crashes on Granville?
A. Granville is not wide enough to accommodate the volume of traffic it experiences
Granville experiences a high level of non-local traffic. About two-thirds of traffic on Granville is non-local traffic.
High levels of activity along and near Granville. Granville connects neighbors to multiple schools, parks & trails, transit, and commercial corridors
Granville sees high vehicle speeds. Speeds as high as 70mph have been recorded at various locations along Granville.
Q. Isn’t Granville a “Collector Street”?
A. No. Granville is recognized by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), and CDOT as a local neighborhood street.
The FHWA classifies streets based on their function and hierarchy within the street network.
Local Streets “are not intended for use in long distance travel […] They are often designed to discourage through traffic” (FHWA).
Q. Can Granville be reclassified as a “Collector Street”?
A. No. Granville does not meet the width requirements set by the FWHA and IDOT for Collector Streets
The mismatch between the narrow width and high volume of vehicles contributes to the high number of crashes occurring on Granville.
Local neighborhood streets are not designed to support the number of vehicles that currently use Granville each day.
Q. How will this proposal impact traffic in the neighborhood?
A. Traffic volumes in some locations on Granville are expected to decrease by up to two-thirds.
Overall traffic throughout the neighborhood is expected to decrease as longer-distance non-local trips are redistributed from Granville to other parts of the arterial street network.
While local inbound traffic will be redistributed to other streets, no street is anticipated to receive more traffic than it is designed to accommodate.
Q. Can you achieve the same project goals with only traffic calming elements?
A. No. A Comprehensive approach is required on Granville.
Granville needs an approach that reduces the number of non-local trips; encourages safe, consistent, and predictable speeds; and better organizes Granville for many forms of travel.
Q. Will this impact emergency services?
A. No. Emergency access will be preserved.
All intersections are designed to the specifications of the largest Chicago Fire Department vehicles.
Emergency services can travel in all directions.
Improved traffic volumes and organization are anticipated to improve the operations of emergency services by reducing current delays.
See more frequently asked questions and their answers here.