Bus Transit

Yesterday’s Active Transportation Alliance announcement submitting 20 streets for consideration as partial or total car-free spaces has already sparked a lively dialogue. Stories in the Tribune, Sun-Times, ABC, and DNAinfo have all examined whether or not the automobile-dominated status quo represents an appropriate allocation of public space.

Current plans for Ashland BRT call for a layout at unsignalized intersections similar to this design at Ashland/Ohio: a single crosswalk that passes through an opening in the median.

If you’re running for a Chicago political office and want to showcase your inadequate knowledge of local transportation issues, a great way to do it is to trash the city’s Ashland bus rapid transit plan. At a recent panel of candidates for state rep in the 10th district of Illinois’ House of Representatives, which includes neighborhoods from Garfield Park to Lincoln Park, veteran policeman Eddie Winters did just that.

The Chicagoland region "underspends on transit operations and capital" compared to peer cities, and the "region's economic competitiveness will suffer" as a result, according to a recent analysis by the Metropolitan Planning Council [PDF]. The report takes a look at Metra, the CTA, and Pace as a collective system, comparing it to transit networks in 17 other regions.

Yesterday Roger Romanelli’s anti-bus rapid transit group the Ashland-Western Coalition made its most overtly political move to date. An email from the coalition urged members to lobby their aldermen to oppose the CTA’s plan, implying the AWC will campaign against politicians who support it. “The Chicago February 2015 election is ahead,” Romanelli wrote. “It's time for Aldermen to declare their Ashland BRT positions. Are they with the people... or do they support a costly, disruptive BRT?”

After old-school traffic engineer Tom Kaeser was featured in the Sun-Times for his ten-page letter to the CTA predicting the Ashland BRT plan could be “a dagger in the heart of Chicago,” we deconstructed his arguments, as did City Pages’ Daniel Hertz. Earlier this week, a quartet of heavy-hitters from the local transportation scene got in on the action.

A recent Sun-Times piece gave airtime to old-school Chicago Department of Transportation traffic engineer Tom Kaeser, gloomily predicting that the CTA’s Ashland bus rapid transit plan will cause carmageddon. Last week, in the wake of that article, University of Chicago public policy grad student Daniel Hertz cleverly debunked some of the arguments against creating fast, reliable Ashland bus service on his blog City Notes.

At the site of the former Cuneo Hospital and Maryville Academy in Uptown, slated to be demolished shortly, JDL Development has proposed building 749 apartments in two buildings, along with 30,000 square feet of retail space. In addition, 554 parking spaces will be constructed, the minimum required by Chicago’s zoning code.

When I worked at the Chicago Department of Transportation’s bicycle program, from 2001 to 2006, it was a very different department than it is today. While there was an interest in improving conditions for walking, transit, and cycling, the city’s main transportation goal, as it had been for most of the previous century, was to move cars. The most blatant example of this attitude during my time at CDOT was the 2005 removal of the pedestrian crossing between Buckingham Fountain and the lakefront to speed traffic on Lake Shore Drive.