Dear Mayor Bart:

We, the residents of Oaks Avenue, are writing this petition because we are concerned about the safety on our street due to a constant speeding along Oak Avenue by drivers taking a shortcut between Barrington Road and S. Main Street.Because of its location in our town Oaks Avenue is used as a major thoroughfare and drivers are notoriously treating it as a 35mph zone rather than a 25mph, even though it is clearly a residential area and a speed limit sign is posted. ,

There are a number of families with children living directly on or very near Oak Avenue. As a result, there are many children playing outside on the front yards, riding bikes and scooters along the sidewalks, and traveling to friends’ houses, as well as students going to/returning home from school, people running and walking their pets. All along what is supposed to be a quiet residential street but is instead a major thoroughfare with drivers repeatedly exceeding the posted speed limit of 25 mph.

All of us, residents living on Oak Avenue can recall instances of speeders going down our street. Several particularly egregious and dangerous accounts have even been reported to the police. We have reported witnessing near collisions, people nearly being hit by careless drivers speeding down the road and other close calls when drivers speeding down our street nearly collided with the residents.

So far there have been only numerous accidents involving our pets and other animals killed on Oak Avenue but it is only a matter of time before it will be one of our children. Naturally we are afraid for our children's safety. We would like to see this problem addressed and resolved before anyone is injured. We all collectively believe that to seek solution to this problem after some gets injured would be too late. The time to act is now, not after tragedy takes place. This is a concern that has gone unchecked for long enough.

We, the undersigned, tax paying citizens of this community, ask you, our elected mayor, to ensure the safety of Wauconda residents by installing one or more speed bumps on Oaks Avenue to prevent high speed traffic via our residential street. We believe that the speeds bumps and other traffic calming devices will deter the drivers from speeding and may even cut down on the shortcut traffic through our street, without compromising the ability of emergency vehicles to access the street.

We are asking that you please address this problem before it is to late and someone gets hurt. We also thank you in advance for your consideration and help with improving the safety on our street.

Very truly yours,