Lake Shore Drive
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Lake Shore Drive Has Always Been About People, Not Traffic
There is no highway for the sake of traffic. There is a highway for the sake of moving large quantities of people because people generate traffic. Depending on the highway's alignment, and the land use, how much traffic people will choose to generate is highly influenceable. If it's tolled, more people than usual will carpool or take transit. If a highway is built passing highly desirable destinations without other ways to reach them, it will get congested. Neither of these are uncontrollable phenomena. I'm talking about Lake Shore Drive and the project to study the alternatives for the corridor between Grand Avenue and where Lake Shore Drive ends at Hollywood Avenue. The study's public participation, the first group in a series of 5 meetings, began last week, where citizens learned about the study and the data project group members – the Chicago and Illinois Departments of Transportation, CTA, and the Chicago Park District – have gathered so far.
August 13, 2013
North Lake Shore Drive Will Get Rebuilt, But Will It Be a Great Street?
The north portion of Lake Shore Drive, from Grand Avenue to its northern terminus at Hollywood Avenue, will be rebuilt in the next five years. It's a major transportation project and a huge opportunity for Chicago, but will we make the most of it?
July 25, 2013
Thinking Big: The Lake Shore Drive Bike-and-Bus Highway
Back in August, longtime bicycling activist Randy Neufeld – currently the director of the SRAM Cycling Fund and formerly the Active Transportation Alliance's first paid staffer – outlined an intriguing proposal in Chicago Magazine: building a bike-and-bus highway into the north Lake Shore Drive reconstruction project.
March 1, 2013
The Fullerton Rehab May Slow LSD Buses, Not Just Peds and Bikes
When I attended the ribbon cutting for the reconfiguration of Fullerton Avenue at Lake Shore Drive last December, there was a lot of talk from city officials about how the rehab would improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists. In reality this redesign, planned before forward-thinking Chicago Department of Transportation chief Gabe Klein took office, seems to have been done mostly for the convenience of drivers, at the expense of pedestrians and cyclists. Ironically, the new configuration seems to be delaying motorized traffic on the drive, but it's not just car commuters paying the price: the CTA’s vital express buses are also getting bogged down in congestion.
February 5, 2013