Ashland Avenue BRT

Ashland Avenue BRT could be a transformative project for Chicago, demonstrating the benefits of re-orienting streets to prioritize transit and walking. Projected to nearly double bus speeds, improve reliability, attract new riders, and improve pedestrian safety, Ashland BRT could potentially be the first world-class bus project in America, designed to a standard that would receive the top BRT rating from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.

Bus rapid transit opponents may have made the most noise at Tuesday night’s community meeting about the CTA’s plan for fast, reliable bus service on Ashland Avenue, hosted by the Chicago Grand Neighbors Association at Talcott Elementary School in Noble Square. But when you’re familiar with the details of the proposal, as well as successful BRT and bus-priority routes in other cities, it becomes clear that the NIMBY arguments don't hold water.

I gotta hand it to the folks from the anti-bus rapid transit group the Ashland-Western Coalition, they’re nothing if not tenacious. On Wednesday they held another public meeting at Orlando Glass and Trim, 641 North Ashland Avenue, to discuss their strategy to derail the CTA’s plan to create fast, reliable bus rapid transit service on Ashland. Another meeting will be held this Friday, August 30, at 1 p.m. at First Baptist Congregational Church, 1613 West Washington. RSVP to AshlandWesternCoalition[at]gmail.com if you want to attend, but it’s probably best not to tell them you heard about the meeting here.

At yesterday's press conference touting the CTA's claim of saving $10 million by cracking down on absenteeism, I asked the Mayor Rahm Emanuel why he's in favor of reconfiguring Ashland Avenue to create "gold-standard" bus rapid transit. I also asked how he plans to overcome the resistance to turning two of the four car lanes into bus-only lanes. However, as urban planner Steve Schlickman argued at a recent forum on BRT, the best way to convince people of the merits of the street redesign may be simply "doing it." The mayor's response provided a decent summary of the city's current strategy for improving transportation: working on multiple ways to move people around the Chicago more efficiently, not just people in cars.

While the anti-bus rapid transit crowd would have you believe there’s little backing for the city’s plan for fast, reliable service on Ashland Avenue, a new survey found that a majority of Chicago voters support BRT as a solution to the city’s transit needs. The new opinion data comes in addition to the 23 local businesses and organizations that have already signed on as supporters of bus rapid transit, as well as the over 1400 residents who’ve signed an Active Transportation Alliance petition voicing their support for the plan.

The bus rapid transit NIMBY group known as the Ashland-Western Coalition has been doing its darndest to get aldermen to sign on to its severely watered-down alternative proposal to the CTA’s plan for fast, reliable, “gold-standard” BRT on Ashland Avenue. Fortunately, response from local politicians to the coalition’s anemic “Modern Express Bus” proposition - essentially just bringing back the old, slow #X9 Ashland express bus -  has been lukewarm. Better still, 47th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar, who already has a good track record for promoting sustainable transportation, has thrown his hat in the ring as a strong supporter of the full BRT plan.