Here at Streetsblog Chicago, one of my tasks is to write rebuttals when other local news outlets get the story wrong on walk/bike/transit projects. The local Not In My Back Yard-style newspaper chain Inside Publications (read about their previous anti-sustainable transportation crusades here) keeps sending work my way.
Last month Inside Publications Editor Ronald Roenigk gave me the opportunity to dissect his lengthy screed against the proposed Granville Avenue (6200 N.) Traffic Safety project, titled, "Neighbors Rally to Stop Glenwood Greenway." It ran in his Edgewater paper, the News-Star.
For starters, the so-called "greenway" would be a Chicago Department of Transportation project to make Granville safer for people walking, biking, scooting, and, yes, driving, not just a cycling initiative. And Roenigk included statements like, "[Local Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th)] and CDOT [are holding negotiations] to allow a new greenway to metastasize [spread or grow like a cancer.]" Paging "yellow journalism" publisher William Randolph Hearst!
On October 15, the transportation department; Ald. Manaa-Hoppenworth; fellow local alders Andre Vasquez (40th) and Debra Silverstein (50th); and local State Senator Mike Simmons hosted a public hearing on the proposal. It was held at Misericordia, 6300 N. Ridge Avenue, and drew hundreds of people.
In a nutshell, CDOT is proposing to address heavy traffic, frequent crashes, and sometimes-terrifying speeding incidents on a nearly three-mile stretch of Granville between Kedzie Avenue (3200 W.) and Sheridan Road (1000 W.) Drivers are currently treating Granville, a residential street, like a highway. So the goal is to encourage safer behavior, and make it impossible to use the avenue for "cut-through" crosstown motor vehicle trips.
The department proposes installing speed bumps, traffic circles, curb bump-outs, and/or raised crosswalks, and implementing other strategies proven to help calm traffic. And instead of Granville being a continuous two-way route for drivers, CDOT would add one-way segments, with "contraflow" bike lanes to legalize cycling in both directions and make it safer.
Until recently, besides Streetsblog's coverage, the only other news outlet that I was aware reported on the meeting was Block Club Chicago. Freelancer Reema Saleh did a well-written, balanced take on the issue, "Granville Avenue Overhaul Could Make Dangerous Stretch Safer, City Says."
But yesterday Streetsblog reader and Edgewater resident John Casey alerted me that the News-Star put out another doozy. The headline? "Full house turns out for CDOT pitch for changes on Granville: It's full speed ahead in jamming up traffic." The odd thing is, as you can see from the screenshot at the top of this post, unlike Roenigk's previous Granville rant, there's no byline. More on that later, but I had my suspicion who the author was, since the piece was written in fluent Roenigk-ese.
You can read the whole thing here, if you you can handle a spike in your blood pressure. But, since I read Inside Publications articles so you don't have to, let me do a quick analysis of some of the claims.
• News-Star: "The majority of the crowd was far from happy." As I wrote previously, that wasn't my impression at all: "My sense was that at least around half, possibly a majority, of attendees liked what they heard, especially the parents of school kids on Granville who are endangered by the status quo of heavy crosstown car traffic and speeding." Rather, it seemed like all the attendees who broke the previously-stated rules of the hearing, by calling out questions or refutations during CDOT's presentation, were skeptical of or opposed to the proposal. But the naysayers weren't necessarily "the majority."
• News-Star: "CDOT Complete Streets Director David Smith even shouted across the room to scold those who dared to speak up, ask questions, or challenged CDOT data or statements." It's true that Smith did eventually seem annoyed by the many interruptions, so maybe "scold" is accurate. But that was understandable, because he'd already explained a couple of times that there was only an hour and a half to work with at the venue, and questions would be taken during the open house, but the detractors ignored him. However, it seemed like the open house format worked fine for Q & A, because by closing time, the room had already pretty much cleared out. Presumably everyone who wanted answers to questions, or to provide constructive feedback – as opposed to grandstanding in front of a crowd – had a chance to do so.
• News Star: Referred to comments from elected officials and CDOT at the hearing, who were advocating for lowering the crash rate on Granville, as "safetyism." The paper defined that as, "a culture or belief system in which alleged safety has become a sacred value, which means that people or public officials are unwilling to make any tradeoffs." But it's not like the politicians and civil servants were espousing mystical mumbo-jumbo that night. The transportation department noted there were 664 total crashes, with 180 people injured, on Granville in the past five years, representing half of all the injury crashes on side streets in the area. Twenty percent of those collisions were during school drop-off and pickup times, and 88 percent of the motorists who caused injuries don't live in the area. With numbers like that, continuing to let drivers use the avenue as a high-speed, long-distance route wouldn't be a "tradeoff." It would be urban planning malpractice.
• News-Star: "CDOT has a long history of not consulting with residents in areas where they plan to make changes, and then like they did last week, springing those plans on neighbors once they're mostly already fully formed." Please. CDOT Complete Streets Planning Manager Brad Huff said during his presentation that the department has had many discussions with block clubs, schools, and other stakeholders along the corridor. And what was that huge meeting, chopped liver?
• News-Star: "[CDOT plans to] create one-way sections of Granville to force drivers onto other nearby residential roads." Nope, as a result of these changes, using Granville as a long-distance cut-through driving route would no longer be an option, and it shouldn't be. Instead, long-distance motorists would go two blocks south to Peterson Avenue (6000 N.), or two blocks north to Devon Avenue (6400 N.), the arterials they’re supposed to be using. "But wouldn't some drivers still try to take shortcut by sneaking around on non-Granville side streets?" you might ask. If your goal is to have a speedy crosstown route, you'd be be better off using Peterson than monkeying around on other residential streets that only run for a few blocks, and/or don't have four-way stop signs or stoplights at major street crossings.
• News-Star: "[No one with the City addressed] the daily violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act due to scooters and bike riding on the sidewalk." One thing I find amusing about rebutting Inside Publications is that many of the papers' arguments are so goofy and/or stereotypical, they seem like they're straight out of an Onion parody of car-centric NIMBY-ism.
The News-Star spent three paragraphs of its story, about the proposal to reduce car crashes on Granville, to discuss the supposed bike and e-scooter menace. Never mind that drivers struck and killed at least 30 pedestrians and five bicycle riders on Chicago streets last year, while I've seen no evidence of a bicycle or e-scooter rider fatally striking a bystander on our city's streets – ever. The paper even beat the dead horse of calling for bicycle license plates. Yes, it's generally illegal for people 12 or older to ride on Chicago sidewalks, and if you're going much faster than walking speed, that's dangerous and inconsiderate. But Chicagoans who ride on the sidewalks of streets like Granville, with heavy, fast traffic and no bike lanes, are doing so because using the street feels dangerous. The proposed changes, including bicycle lanes in each direction, would help get bike and scooter riders off sidewalks by making it safer for them to travel in the street.
As I said, I was pretty sure Ronald Roenigk wrote this News-Star article, but why didn't he put his name on it? Did Streetsblog roast him so mercilessly in our previous post that he was afraid to unmask himself?
I was curious, so this morning I called up the Inside Publications office, located in Edgewater just north of Granville. Last time I telephoned them, I politely suggested to Roenigk that he correct his statement that the Dickens Avenue Greenway was paid for by "Chicago taxpayer funds," when it was actually funded by Divvy bike-share revenue. He hung up on me. So I was bracing myself for the worst.
To Roenick's credit, even after I explained who I was and what I was doing, he was reasonably civil. Granted, I made an effort to avoid contradicting his statements about the Granville proposal, and he still got pretty heated while talking about it. But it was a medium-length, fairly productive conversation.
Roenigk confirmed that he wrote the new Granville story. He told me he omitted his byline because he writes many of the paper's stories (at least the ones that aren't produced by the faceless, problematic crime blog CWB Chicago.) "I think it's a little bit self-obsessed to have your name on every article," he said. Hmm, that would explain why he was previously put out articles with fake bylines like "Hugh Mann Wrights" and "Kareem N. Sugar."
Also appreciated, Roenigk told me that he recently attended a meeting of the Northeast Edgewater Neighbors Association. (I'm not seeing that group online, so apologies if I slightly misheard the name.) He said that residents at the event who live on Granville said they were in favor of the changes, while those on other side streets were opposed. "This project has pitted neighbors against neighbors," he said. Did he mean, like just about every other large-scale street redesign or development proposal in Chicago?
Roenigk mentioned that he will publish another article about the NEMA meeting this week. Like the recent Block Club article on the Granville proposal, I'm confident that this will be "a well-written, balanced take on the issue." Just kidding, but if necessary, Streetsblog will run a rebuttal of that one too.
Read the entire News-Star writeup of the October 15 meeting here.
Read Streetsblog's writeup of the meeting here.
Visit the main website for Granville Avenue Complete Streets here.
Check out images from the October 15 presentation here.
Look at more open house posters here.
See images of the street network here.
Check out the corridor plot here.
Did you appreciate this post? Please consider making a tax-deductible donation, to help keep Streetsblog Chicago's sustainable transportation news and advocacy articles paywall-free.
