Paxton Knopsnyder, a member of the Walkers and Bicyclists for a Safer Community (WBSC) group, recalls the moment he and other residents knew there was a need to further advocate for better safety measures for the walkers and bicyclists of the community.
WBSC member Paxton Knopsnyder sees a need for signage around Sun City, like this golf cart notice, alerting drivers whom they share roads. (Photo provided)
Knopsnyder stated that he and a few other Sun City residents on the Wildflower Lake Neighbor Facebook page, began to discuss an incident regarding a Sun City bicyclist who had been severely injured after having been rear ended by a car. By the end of November 2020, a new special interest group had taken form.
Knopsnyder alongside fellow Sun City residents John Zeller and Nancy Glissman, continue to grow the group in the attempt to not only educate motorists but active community members.
“We actually have about 37 members on email right now and we hold our Zoom meetings. Normally we get I’d say 15 [people] to come to our Zoom meetings and the rest are on email which they get our meeting minutes and our agendas. We developed some focuses early, on things that we were going to focus on. One of them was education because motorists sometimes feel that they own the road and nobody else should be out there on their road,” Knopsnyder explained.
He continued by stating that the WBSC group also works to make bicyclists and walkers aware that they too need to be vigilant in ensuring their safety.
“You need to be visible. Sometimes if you’re wearing dark clothes and it’s a gloomy day, people don’t see you as well. That’s another education point that we’ve been making and then there’s awareness. The awareness part, we’re calling it, ‘right to be bright.’ That you should wear visible clothing. Traffic control is another thing that we’ve been looking at and that is because there is a lot of speeders. The faster people drive the less observant they become of who could be out there,” Knopsnyder said.
Due to Sun City being an active older adult community, Knopsnyder stated that there is a need for more signage to be put around neighborhoods reflecting the need for motorists to be aware of who they are sharing the roadways with.
As an added call to action to get their message across, the WBSC group began a petition in hopes of one day presenting it to Huntley Village officials.
“This petition, we’ve been working with [the] Active Transportation Alliance and that is an advocacy group out of Chicago. They advocate for not only in Chicago, but through the whole Northern Illinois area and they also really branch out downstate into Illinois also. They [advocate] for walkers, bikers, and mass transit. So, they do a lot with Pace and the CTA and stuff like that,” Knopsnyder said. “They held some forums with other advocacy groups and we attended some of those, and we got an idea from talking and listening to some of these groups, that a petition is a very good way to go…If you have some signees on a petition, it makes you more recognized.”
With the help of the Active Transportation Alliance, the WBSC group developed wording for the petition where it is now available to Sun City residents to sign.
“This petition has been out there for about two weeks and we got 217 signees on our petition. It has worked out very well for us. We get the numbers on who’s signing on and all that stuff, from the petition…What we did is we can email this petition to people and from there they just click on the link and it takes them right into the petition. We’ve also posted this petition on Facebook,” Knopsnyder said.
The next step would involve the WBSC one day presenting the petition in front of the Huntley village president and Board of Trustees or other officials. The group has also approached Sun City management, though they are continuing to communicate by attending other committee meetings to see what steps they can take as a community.
“We might keep [the petition] open as long as its current. At any point we can take that information and go to the Village officials and provide that to them. As long as what we’re trying to do is current, then we’ll keep the petition out there for more signees. If the Village starts to work with us and be more receptive and do things we’re saying, then maybe the petition would need to change or be updated or might be something different,” Knopsnyder said.
As COVID-19 restrictions ease up, the WBSC group hopes to get involved with some of the biking and walking events in Sun City.
“One of the things we’re working on too, is t-shirts. We just started working on t-shirts with logos on the front and back. On the back it would say, ‘It’s right to be bright.’ This would be a bright yellow t-shirt and people are interested. Of course, they can buy that,” he included.
Residents interested in finding out more about this group can contact WBSC leader Zeller either via email, jczeller23@gmail.com, or his phone number, 847-217-5468. The WBSC group meets through Zoom the first Wednesday of every month at 1 p.m.
