Google Maps Has Say In Hinsdale Traffic Patterns: Officials

HINSDALE, IL – Mental note to Hinsdale: Check the traffic on Lincoln Street a year from now.

At least one village trustee wants that to happen.

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On Tuesday, trustees appeared to agree on the need for an all-way stop at Lincoln Street and Ayres Avenue.

But Trustee Scott Banke said he had a prediction.

"I would suggest to you that the majority of the traffic you're seeing going up Lincoln today is nonresidents that are taking Lincoln because they're being directed that way through Google Maps," Banke said. "What's going to happen is that Google Maps is going to divert traffic to Vine Street."

"No doubt," Trustee Luke Stifflear said.

The change in traffic would result from the all-way stop at Lincoln and Ayres, Banke said.

"I don't know there's anything we can do, but it's the world we live in today," he said.

Stifflear requested the village measure traffic on Lincoln in a year and then follow up with trustees.

As he has before, Stifflear warned that every traffic action causes an equal and opposite reaction.

"If you put up too many stop signs, the result of that is people start speeding between the stop signs and no longer listen to the stop signs. They just roll through them," he said. "It is a balance."

At the intersection in question, Lincoln already has stop signs, even though it has five times as much traffic as Ayres, officials said.

A recent crash at the intersection prompted the consideration of stop signs on Ayres as well.