Loop

Chicago just got a step closer to first-class bus rapid transit. Today the CTA and the Chicago Department of Transportation released proposed lane configurations for the Central Loop East-West Transit Corridor, a downtown circulator route connecting Union Station with Navy Pier, as well as renderings for a new transit center next to the train station. The corridor would include bus-priority lanes on two miles of streets: Canal, Washington, Madison and Clinton. This downtown BRT service is slated to launch next year.

Things are looking promising for our city’s latest high-profile public space plan, the Chicago Riverwalk extension. In an interview Tuesday with Streetsblog Capitol Hill editor Tanya Snyder, outgoing U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood implied that a Transportation Infrastructure Finance Innovation Act loan will soon be approved that will help bankroll the $90-100 million project.

The Chicago Riverwalk extension, from State Street to Lake Street along the south bank of the waterway, will be a marquee public space and recreation project in the same class as Millennium Park and the Bloomingdale trail and park. And like the Bloomingdale, the riverwalk also has the potential to be a valuable addition to our city’s car-free transportation network.

The Wolf Point site, just south of the Apparel Mart and Chicago Sun-Times building at the confluence of the Chicago River's three branches, has been begging for more productive uses for decades. Momentum has been building since developers associated with the Kennedy family proposed a plan for three towers at Wolf Point in 2007, and the proposal picked up speed in 2012 as it began accumulating the various permissions needed to move forward. Last Thursday, all 21 members of the Chicago Plan Commission signed off on the project, at a hearing that revealed one of the key flaws in the way Chicago manages growth and development.