How would a trucking hub affect residents’ health and safety?
Our children learn in 15 nearby schools.
This facility would be located less than a mile from Prairie-Hills Junior High School, Nob Hill Elementary School, Highlands Elementary School, Pottawatomie School, and Stepping Stones, Where it All Begins, Agape Child Care Learning Center, and Learn as you Grow Daycares.
And it will be located less than two miles from Mae Jemison School, Robert Frost Middle School, Chateaux School, Saint Anne School, Jesse White Learning Academy Elementary School, and Warren Palm School.
The proposed facility and its operations pose a threat to the air quality and safety for the young people attending these schools.
A commuter’s worst nightmare.
The development is on the corner of Dixie Highway and 175th Street. Both of these streets have residential properties across the respective streets from the site. There are no current plans to expand the width of the street to accommodate such a large increase in traffic, particularly from vehicles that require wide-turn radii.
A traffic study conducted by the developers estimated that an additional 300 trucks PER DAY would travel along 175th Street and Dixie Highway to the 171st Street entrance to Interstate 294 and/or from the Dixie Highway exit from Interstate 294, when the proposed development is complete.
Issues not addressed in the study include:
the lack of a traffic light controlling entry and exit to/from the driveway of the development;
the poor state of the pavement on 175th Street, sure to be exacerbated by heavy truck traffic;
the inadequate widths of both 175th Street and Dixie Highway for the proposed traffic load;
the impact of increased traffic on commuters and other drivers using either Metra's Calumet station parking lot or the aforementioned Interstate 294 ramps;
and the impact of increased traffic on residents of the surrounding community, especially those in the Governors Park neighborhood directly across 175th Street from the site.
We need trees, to help us breathe.
Particulate matter pollution in the area is projected to increase with the exhaust from the 300 additional trucks using the facility daily.
As discussed by Patel and Miller (2009, p. 8 of on-line version), "current levels of pollutants remain associated with asthma development and acute asthma morbidity."
O'Hare (2017) reported on research directly linking inhalation of diesel fumes to adverse respiratory symptoms such as those experienced by asthma patients. Some of these symptoms are sufficiently acute to require hospitalization.
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