An Inconvenient Mess: Who's the idiot who screwed up 159th and LaGrange Road?

It's very obvious that the person who re-designed the intersection at 159th and LaGrange Road either:

A) -- Does not live in Orland Park and doesn't care about the needs of the residents nor the needs of the businesses at 159th and LaGrange Road

or,

B) -- The person is an IDIOT! (Not IDOT, Idiot, although some people think they are one and the same.)

The talk of Orland Park continues to be that the re-designed roadwork at 159th and LaGrange Road has resolved one "problem," but created another problem, an inconvenient traffic mess at the 159th and LaGrange Road intersection.

"We used to have a very vibrant business until they [expletive deleted] this intersection," explained one of the employees at one of the businesses at this important intersection.

"Now, customers coming from one direction can't turn into our business any more. They have to turn and go down the road and then either make a U-turn or go into another parking lot and turn around. We've seen the accident rates go up significantly. And all we get are complaints from customers. We tell them, go talk to the Village."

I spoke to several businesses at that intersection and they all say the same thing. (Quietly and fearing retribution because a village can bring a heap of pain down on any business who rocks the boat or publicly complains.) But they are seeing revenues fall and they blame that in part not just on the economic situation but on the difficulty customers are having getting to their businesses. And the complaints are many.

The Village's trustees and officials don't always talk to their constituents, living high off the hog in the wake of their recent Beautification, or, as some might call it, an "alleged election." I hear some of the officials are going to arrange to have themselves Knighted or Canonized.

But back to the problem. The intersection at 159th and LaGrange Road is an absolute mess. The reason they renovated the intersection was to "ease the traffic gridlock" there, they said. Well, they traded one problem for another.

Yes, they widened the road. But at what expense? Was it the fault of McDonough (which is one of several companies being investigated by the Federal Government that no one cares about?) Or, more likely, was it the result of the incompetent morons who happen to be the village engineers on the project, who can't engineer their way out of a paper bag. They sure do know how to make campaign contributions to cover up that fact.

Our engineers in the village have a serious problem. They screwed up the flooding problems in the village and came up with a half-assed program that alleviated some of the water troubles -- no one wants to talk about that any more or about the millions spent by the village to buy up the WRONG homes flooded by the waters from 13 years ago.

And now our engineers have screwed up 159th and LaGrange Road. With all the problems local businesses face, from the excessive taxes imposed by County Board President Todd Stroger to the oppressive economic downturn that many rightly describe as a recession, the last thing the village businesses need is a traffic pattern that DISCOURAGES customers from patronizing their businesses.

You might almost think that the Village Idiots -- err, engineers -- intentionally designed it so traffic cannot turn in to local business parking lots and forced the motorists to make left turns and then drive down LaGrange Road south until they come to another strip mall where they have to turn in and then make a U-turn to return to LaGrange Road and then make a right turn to get into one business. Every business is the same. Screwed.

But who cares? The village didn't raise our vehicle stickers $5 (thanks to this column publicizing that worthless effort), but they can pay enormous money to an engineering firm that is worthless and that has a poor record of service but that clearly has some close ties to some of our local officials.

Mayor McLaughlin, PLEASE! Don't use those morons again; hire someone else. Maybe new engineers can figure out how to help the businesses at 159th and LaGrange Road recover their losses. Better yet, maybe they can help the village residents who would like to visit those businesses without increasing their chances of getting in to an accident by taking spaghetti-looped routes involving multiple turns and U-turns and anger.

One problem replaced with another. It's truly one of the most messed up locations in this village.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com