Yesterday there's was some bad news about traffic safety as Ald. Timmy Knudsen (43rd) and the Chicago Department of Transportation started following through with their plan to give the Dickens Avenue plaza back to drivers. As a matter of fact, I'm currently typing up this article in that plaza, located at Dickens and Lincoln Park West, which I'm told will be reopened to dangerous "cut-through" traffic this Wednesday, October 9. So this Streetsblog post is literally a blog post from a street.
But there's also been some good Complete Streets news recently. Last Saturday CDOT finally completed a long-awaited traffic circle at Belden (2300 N.) and St. Louis (3500 W.) avenues in Logan Square, which will help calm traffic for safer walking, biking, and driving.
"We are pleased that construction on the traffic circle at St. Louis and Belden is wrapping up," said Scott Jaburek, deputy chief of staff for local Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th). "We hope that this community investment will help improve pedestrian and traffic safety, and we appreciate the residents who came together and advocated for its installation."
Granted, not everyone will admit that the arrival of the new $14,000-plus brick-pattern-stamped concrete disk is a good thing. As previously reported by former SBC freelancer Ariel Parella for Block Club Chicago, longtime Chicago sustainable transportation advocate and prankster Michael Burton claimed that he was opposed to the new infrastructure. He said he preferred the large hole in the intersection that CDOT dug for the roundabout, which sat there surrounded by traffic barrels for weeks, annoying other neighbors.
Burton argued that the street pit worked fine to slow down drivers, and said he'd rather see the City money used for other purposes. He went so far as to launch a #SaveTheHole social media campaign, a tongue-in-cheek effort to preserve the road crater.
This crusade culminated on Saturday, September 28, when Burton and his Logan Square-themed rock band Urban Spaceman played a free outdoor concert while literally standing in the avenues' orifice. Dozens of residents showed up for this very fun hole-apalooza.
"Thanks for... working with us to save The Hole," Burton said during the performance. "We can remake our cities around people and not cars. And it's simple... Sometimes we don't need to have real expensive things to make things better... We don't have to over-improve. We can do scheduled non-maintenance."
So what does Burton have to say now that his campaign has come to the end of the road? "While neighbors haver been mourning the loss of The Hole, there's been a groundswell of community support to relocate the [Civil War hero] General John Logan's statue from a lonely corner of Grant Park [Michigan Avenue and 9th Street]," he said. "The new brick platform in the center of the St. Louis and Belden intersection is the perfect spot to finally bring the general back home to Logan Square."
In reality, it's highly unlikely the statue will be moved from its current Grant Park location. That site on a hill played a key role during Chicago's 1968 Democratic National Convention protests.
However, Belden/St.Louis worked great as a music venue. So why not instead turn the new roundabout into a miniature version of Chicago's popular Salt Shed music venue? We could call it The Road Salt Shed.
I'm kidding here – playing music while standing on top of the Logan Square traffic circle without traffic barrels to protect you from reckless or distracted drivers would be dangerous. Please don't do that.
But if you're feeling sad about the loss of a truly subterranean concert space, here are a few traffic circle-related songs to tide you over.
• "Roundabout” by Yes
• “Will It Go Round in Circles” by Billy Preston
• “The Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell
• “English Roundabout” by XTC (This tune is literally about a traffic roundabout.)
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