By Stephanie Irvine

Lawmakers, public safety officials, and local government representatives want immediate improvements at Route 1/Dixie Highway and County Line Road to try to reduce the severity and frequency of crashes there while IDOT completes work toward its planned permanent change.

The problematic intersection is regularly the site of serious wrecks, and just last month, a fiery crash claimed the life of a Joliet man.

There is a stop sign on each side of County Line Road, while traffic on Dixie Highway has no limitations. The speed limit is 55, though its rural location makes it ripe for speeders, and heavy truck traffic means accidents are often severe.

After the last fatal accident, Beecher Fire Chief Joe Falaschetti and other local leaders say they need to see change — and fast.

“I don’t want another fatal accident there. Let’s avoid it and get to some short-term solution,” Kankakee County Sheriff Mike Downey said.

A meeting held on March 9, hosted by the Beecher Fire Protection District, brought together approximately 20 local leaders and elected officials — all seeking immediate improvements from IDOT, including but not limited to a flashing light, rumble strips, and a four-way stop — to help slow traffic and prevent serious accidents.

Currently, IDOT is in Phase 2 of an engineering study at the intersection. The study determined that converting the intersection to a roundabout would be the best choice, IDOT District 1 Bureau Chief of Programming Steven Schilke explained.

Schilke said roundabouts are proven to reduce speed and significantly reduce severe accidents.

However, they’ve only just begun Phase 2, which means Phase 3 construction wouldn’t start until 2028 at the earliest. Phase 2 is right-of-way configuration and land acquisition — what Schilke says is a controlling factor in how long it could take to implement a change.

“We can’t wait,” state Rep. Jackie Haas, R-Kankakee, said, pushing for an interim solution.

Need a recount

During Schilke’s presentation, he cited data showing only two fatal accidents over the last five years, which elicited audible shock from the attendees.

“We’ve got people in the room shaking their heads. It seems like that data is incorrect,” state Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-South Holland, said.

IDOT’s decisions and actions are based entirely on data, specifically crash data and traffic counts, but local officials say they’re not getting the full picture due to the mixed jurisdiction at the intersection.

The intersection is under Will County’s purview to the north of County Line Road on Dixie Highway and Kankakee County to the south. The state is responsible for Dixie Highway.

“It’s rare to respond to a property damage-only accident where people walk away. These are big accidents — we don’t get fender benders there. We need to do something,” Grant Park Police Chief Carl Frey said.

Downey said Kankakee County was willing to install rumble strips, but ran into issues with the Will County Department of Transportation, which denied the request.

“We can’t sit and wait for two years for a study, or another study, or another study. We’re telling people, well, there’s a study going on. Families who suffer a life-altering situation like that don’t want to hear about a study,” Downey said.

For Jones, it’s a personal mission to create safer intersections after being involved in a serious accident himself.

Before the meeting concluded, Jones said he had contacted Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, who pledged rumble strips — a step in the right direction, though ultimately not the fix the group was seeking.

Who’s Call?

IDOT’s Lisa Heaven-Baum said IDOT has been working on getting updated crash data reports in its system, but acknowledged there was a backlog from State Police.

Will County Coroner Laurie Summers and Kankakee County Coroner Robert Gessner each said they’ve had to make death notifications, and who gets called depends on where the decedent ultimately landed in the accident, as the intersection is literally at the county line.

Beecher Fire Protection District Chief Joe Falaschetti added when someone calls 911, their cell phone ping could route to either Kan-Comm Dispatch or Will County’s Laraway Communications, depending on where they are in the intersection. Although it’s a mutual auto-aid area, the commanding department would retain the data.

Further complicating datasets is that fatalities resulting from an accident but that don’t occur at the scene (meaning someone dies enroute to the hospital or at the hospital), do not get included in IDOT’s crash statistics, Summers explained.

Fatalities from accidents at County Line Road and Dixie Highway could be counted in Cook County, or, in the case of individuals transported to hospitals in Indiana, local officials won’t get the data at all.

Haas also questioned whether a roundabout was the right solution, noting that people get confused by them, but Schilke said the data didn’t support a traffic light at the intersection.

The group pressed for a four-way stop now to slow people down and save lives.

But, Heaven-Baum said they have to study whether adding stop signs could create another hazardous condition with traffic backing up on Dixie Highway.

Falaschetti responded that traffic is already routinely backed up for at least an hour or more whenever there’s an accident. The last fatal accident closed the road for six hours.

IDOT has to follow the Federal Highway Administration’s Uniform Manual on Traffic Control Devices, so interim measures would still require those additional studies, and ultimately, the Will County Department of Transportation would be responsible for implementing any interim changes, Heaven-Baum explained.

“Is there opposition from IDOT to putting a stop sign there? Because what I keep hearing from everybody is that we want something done that would help immediately, to make sure we don’t have these catastrophic accidents anymore,” state Rep. Elgie Sims, Jr., D-Chicago, asked.

“It’s not that there’s an opposition. There’s a process we have to follow,” IDOT’s Jose Rios said.

Why not here?

Officials questioned whether costs were the real culprit behind the slow process, citing how quickly stop signs were erected on Route 50.

“I grew up in Beecher. I got a post hole digger at home, I’ll do the work,” Summers said, underscoring the desperation to get change at the intersection.

Beecher Trustee Joe Tieri said he gets stopped all the time by residents asking why Route 50’s problematic intersection was fixed so quickly, while their intersection is neglected.

“I’ll help the coroner dig the hole. I’ll buy the stop sign. At least people can see we’re trying,” Tieri said.

IDOT said they won’t have to go through the letting process, and this is as fast as they can move. Schilke said Route 50’s intersection study also was further along than this one.

They will need 30 days to update the traffic study, after which they’ll know whether the data tells them it’s safe enough to install a four-way stop, Schilke said.

“This is us doing everything — we’ve expedited our consultant to do a count, so we’ve jumped it ahead of other things in the workflow process. This is as quick as we can,” Heaven-Baum said.

Officials said it wasn’t good enough.

“When I hear more studies, I just hear more time,” Frey said.

Frey wasn’t alone; the sentiment in the room was that everyone was sick of hearing about studies.

“Maybe some of the people that sit around a desk over there, you need to come out and see it,” Gessner said.

“Shame on you for having another death out there when we’ve been trying to tell you there are problems out there, and oh, it’ll take two years. Unbelievable, two years,” Gessner said in disbelief after noting how quickly Route 50 was able to get stop signs installed.

“If you ever have the chance to visit the intersection, one, I caution you — please visit at your own risk — but two, pay attention to the shoulders at that intersection because there’s very, very little visible gravel at the shoulders,” Falaschetti told IDOT.

“It’s basically mulched in car part debris, semi debris, ruts where you could see where every vehicle that has gone off the roadway from an accident to where they’ve ended up,” Falaschetti said.

“That should be a red flag in general.”

The group set a meeting for early April to reconvene and, hopefully, have an exact course of action laid out. In the meantime, they planned to compile their own data to more accurately reflect the conditions and submit it to IDOT.

IDOT officials said they’re committed to making roads as safe as possible and will do everything to expedite the process.

Contacted after the meeting, Jeff Ronaldson, Will County Transportation Director, said he does not recall having a recent conversation regarding rumble strips. The last discussion was in 2024, he said.

The issue with rumble strips, he said, is that they cause increased noise for nearby residents. And at that location, there are a few homes that could be affected.

“In discussions held with IDOT over the years, the accident history has not indicated that failing to stop is the issue out there,” said Ronaldson, who added WDOT was not invited to the meeting.

“Therefore, the County would not be looking to install a countermeasure if it won’t be providing a positive effect.

“I had a good discussion with a member of the Beecher Fire District earlier this month who was at that meeting regarding the idea of transverse rumble strips. My understanding from him is that additional crash data from what IDOT assembled previously as part of its study is being assembled from the various enforcement agencies.

“From that, we would be better able to determine what the current issues are now that the double stop signs, flashing red lights and double stop ahead signs have been in place for a couple years. We can reassess the rumble strip countermeasure upon that review.”

Stephanie Irvine is a freelance reporter. Farmers Weekly Review Editor Nick Reiher contributed to this story.

A car part and mud flap from a truck lie in a rut in the cornfield adjacent to the County Line Road and Route 1/Dixie Highway intersection. (Photos by Stephanie Irvine)

Officials meet at the Beecher Fire Protection District to discuss improvements at County Line
Road and Route 1/Dixie Highway.

Beecher Fire Chief Joe Falaschetti talks with Will County Coroner Laurie Summers and state Rep.
Thaddeus Jones, D-South Holland, as Beecher Assistant Chief Tim McGannon listens.