Uptown

After several years of delay and significant design changes, CDOT has finally started work on the Uptown bikeway.

Another CTA station became wheelchair-friendly today as the main stationhouse of the new Wilson stop opened, complete with an elevator and escalator.

For better or for worse, cyclists will have to detour east to the lakefront on this stretch, and trail users will have to go through an underpass to cross Montrose.

CDOT is planning to install bike lanes on the sidewalks of Uptown's Lawrence and Wilson viaducts. It appears that this is a strategy to prevent future homeless encampments

What you're seeing isn't a typical "Eyes on the Street" because we got our "eyes" up in the air with the new Streetsblog Chicago Traffic Chopper (actually a drone camera) to check in on the reconstruction of the CTA's Wilson 'L' station in Uptown. The project, which began in 2014, will make the train stop fully accessible to people with disabilities, add a new entrance on Sunnyside, and enable transfers between Red and Purple lines for the first time.

Instead of focusing on higher-end shops, restaurants, and housing, many neighbors along this corridor expressed strong support for affordable housing to help maintain a diverse community.

This afternoon in Uptown, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, 48th Ward alderman Harry Osterman, and other local officials cut the ribbon on the Argyle “shared street,” a pedestrian-priority design inspired by similar streets in Asia and Europe. By calming traffic and blurring the lines between spaces for walking and vehicles, as well as providing more room for sidewalk cafes and special events, the streetscape should increase safety while giving a boost to businesses on Chicago’s Southeast Asian retail strip.

This morning the CTA celebrated the completion of more than 50 percent of the Wilson station reconstruction project, shortly after all customer boarding was moved to the recently completed west island platform. Now that both sides of the new platform are completed and the transit agency is working on demolishing the old one, you can get a sense of just how big the station will be when both island platforms are in place. The entire track and platform combo will be the widest in the system, dwarfing even the double-island-platform at the Belmont Red/Purple/Brown station.

The Argyle Shared Street project, designed to calm traffic, provide more space for pedestrians and sidewalk cafes, creating a safer, more pleasant, and more profitable business strip, is a great idea. But so far the layout for the streetscape initiative, which raised the street up to sidewalk level and blurred the lines between pedestrian and vehicle space, has not proved to be intuitive for drivers.