Community Corner
Road Construction: Torture for a Deerfield Mom
I can't take Lake or Deerfield roads. So, what options do I have now?
I used to hate driving west from Deerfield. Now I struggle to get out of my own neighborhood heading anywhere.
I live in Deerfield, smack dab between Lake Cook Road on the South and Deerfield Road on the North. Turning left from my neighborhood onto Lake Cook Road is tortuous. You could wait a solid 10-15 minutes just to turn left. Then wait in that little stretch of road until you hit Pfingsten for another 5-10 minutes.
In the mornings, if Deerfield Road is closed, making it across the tracks on Osterman takes about 18 times longer than it should.
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Now, I am all for any and all repairs to be completed on the tracks, roads, bridges, but was it really necessary to do it all at the same time? One of the nicest things about living in Deerfield is the close proximity we have to get to so many other suburbs and to the city. But now, I can’t get anywhere without a struggle. I feel like Charlie Brown as Lucy pulls the football away just as I’m about to kick it. Aaargh.
A perfect example of my traffic woes happened earlier this week. I had to take my daughter to an orthodontist appointment in Northbrook. We dropped off my middle daughter at South Park, worked our way over to Pine Street and thought we could surely make it to the orthodontist in twenty minutes. Then, I looked at the fifteen or so cars waiting to turn left onto Lake Cook Road from Pine, and knowing that maybe, maybe, 3 cars would get to turn every two minutes we get the green light, we could be waiting twenty minutes just to turn onto Lake Cook Road. So, we turned around, went all the way back through the neighborhood and hopped on the spur. We were a few minutes late, but it was like a crazy maze.
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And to think Ravinia traffic is right around the corner. Travelers heading to the Botanic Gardens will start soon. And summer in itself is just a traffic headache. It is only going to get worse. I would say Metra is the answer, but I’m not sure how you even get to the train stations!
Maybe I’ll get a basket for my bike and run some errands that way. Or lots of walks-thankfully, it's only a mile to Deerfield Square. Or I’ll just continue to fight the craziness we live in until it's over. And be thankful every day after that. Until it starts again next summer?
