CTA Tattler

This morning's article suggests there will be a single bus lane used in one direction in the morning and the other direction in the evening. That means they'll be building boarding stations on opposite sides of the same lane. I'm having trouble seeing how that will work. I guess the bus lane will have to zig-zag, and the stations will be staggered. This seems to preclude using any of the sidewalk for the boarding area, which means that you'll still need two lanes from the street in order to fit bus lane and boarding area. Yet you won't get two full lanes of BRT - only one lane that is in use in different directions at different times. It also means that the bus will be subject to traffic delays along the contra-peak direction of travel, so even the new express buses may get wicked bunched.

I've considered the BRT lane would probably slow down car traffic, but didn't mind, considering that more people would reap benefits on a route like the Chicago Ave. But now I'm concerned that slowing traffic will actually mean slowing the bus in one direction. Hmm. This seems very experimental to me. Quite different from the successful bus lanes of other cities. I wish the city had the guts to go all the way.

As I undestand it the lanes will be on both sides of the street (no zig-zagging necessary) but ony function as bus lanes during their respective rush hours.

This has got to be the most exciting transit announcement to hit chicago in years and we should all do everything possible to make it a sucess. In the long run WE will benefit.

It's about time! I assume that these streets will lose some or all parking? If so, that's pretty ballsy. I like it!

Actually, Marc, I was surprised to see the quotation

"We have had no conversation with the city to remove parking on any of the bus rapid-transit routes," said Jeff Ahmadian, CTA deputy general counsel.

in Hilkevitch's article this morning. (Although let's face it; that sentence could have ended with the phrase "no conversation with the city.")

It'll be interesting to watch. This city has a lot of interesting ideas. It's the execution that never quite comes together.

What happened to LSD being a part of this plan? LSD DESPERATELY needs a bus lane! That fix alone would cut 20 minutes each way off my commute.

This is the start of a good idea, but I'm quite fuzzy on how this pre-paying to board would work. How does the bus know who has paid on the street and who hasn't? Would everyone have to prepay? What happens when you're the person running to catch the bus that's about to pull away? Will you still need to stop at the kiosk to pay your fare?

Also, the article mentioned that the city would "charge loading-zone fees for trucks making on-street deliveries". How does this encourage people to take transit? Should, say, food distributors start making their rounds on the bus?

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Also, the article mentioned that the city would "charge loading-zone fees for trucks making on-street deliveries". How does this encourage people to take transit? Should, say, food distributors start making their rounds on the bus?
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It doesn't.

Good urban planning results in lots of mixed-use development. But that mixed-use development needs loading zones.

If you're not going to have loading zones and on-street parking, you need parking lots and loading docks, and other ammenities. You essentially have to change the city into a suburb... and by now we should have learned that suburban growth patterns don't work.

If you can get more people to walk and take transit, you can possibly have less parking. But you still need the loading zones.

When the price of a loading zone gets too high, your small ma & pa businesses are he first to drop their loading zones. But deliveries still have to be made, so what happens? The trucks park in the middle of a traffic lane.

So ultimately raising the price of loading zones will *increase* congestion. To decrease congestion, the price for loading zones should be lowered, and the permit process simplified.

I think the presumption is that the loading zones will still be used but at hours when no, or lower, fees will be charged. The point, if I understand right, is to keep sidewalk loading zones clear during rush hour. And, indirectly, that theoretically encourages people to use mass transit by making trips faster. (I trust Rusty already has his explanation of why that can't possibly work written and ready to paste in, so I'm starting my stopwatch... NOW. It really doesn't make much difference to me -- I don't have a horse in this race.)

I don't have a response to you because I'm not sure what the heck you're talking about.

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I think the presumption is that the loading zones will still be used but at hours when no, or lower, fees will be charged.
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How do you think fees for loading zones are collected?

I'm still trying to figure our the pre-payment kiosks. Is this going to be like Curatiba or does the CTA even know yet?

Ya got me, Rusty. I think this whole thing is half-assed.

Rusty,

I don't know how fees are collected, but it IS clear in the outline provided by USDOT that they're talking about congestion-pricing of loading zones -- that the idea is to encourage loading at non-peak times.

I'm not saying it's easy to figure out how this will work. Just pointing out that's what they're trying to do. They seem to believe there's a way to channel deliveries into non-peak hours, and not merely encourage scoff-law delivery. We'll see.

nd,

The other thing that you can find in the USDOT document is that there will be different types of pre-payment areas.

1) at "transit hubs" there will be permanent, automated pre-payment areas.

2) other corners will have prepayment areas that are 'portable' and staffed. Since the lanes are at least initially rush-only, I envision a CTA staffer arriving with some sort of ropes and poles method for creating a boarding area that he can control.

Will it work? Again, I'm agnostic. Just trying to describe what the proposal seems to be.

Also, Carole Brown mentions that Huberman will give a presentation Wednesday morning that should fill in more of the blanks.

Thanks, Randall; that's what I thought I remembered about loading zones in this "plan." I've never really thought about it, but I've always assumed loading dock fees are collected like most other city fees, which is to say either checks directly to some office in City Hall or wads of bills in someone's pocket. And I'm pretty sure that not all loading docks are 24-hour operations, so (to the extent I thought about it, as I say) I thought maybe there'd be tiered fees for different times and durations of operation.

Hey, was anyone else just as surprised as I was (cough) to see that Daley's next move -- which he's now lucky enough to be able to call congestion pricing and throw it into this "plan" -- is to take parking meter enforcement private? Wonder which of his buddies just bought some tow trucks. Anyone familiar with how one would fight a parking ticket against a private, for-profit company?

Hard to see how turning parking functions over to some private entity helps the city implement an experimental new program involving parking. You would think retaining flexibility would be key. Leasing some aspect of parking enforcement to a private entity is going to leave the city with less flexibility.

As for loading zones, it's unlikely they're proposing to eliminate them to any significant degree. Presumably the idea is to shift their use to off-peak times. RustyLogic (TM) notwithstanding, that's not going to increase congestion. Also, up is not down.

I still don't understand why they aren't trying to implement this on Lake Shore Drive?

Daily weekday ridership from March 2007 for all the Lake Shore Drive express buses was ~43,000. This easily beats out any other route by 10k riders.

Bob S. posted:
" "We have had no conversation with the city to remove parking on any of the bus rapid-transit routes," said Jeff Ahmadian, CTA deputy general counsel.

in Hilkevitch's article this morning. (Although let's face it; that sentence could have ended with the phrase "no conversation with the city.") "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hah, that guy came right from City Hall several months ago, so you can bet every move he makes on Bus Rapid transit is dictated by the city. Of course, the project he came over from City Hall to handle, CTA bus lane tickets, went nowhere fast so that doesn't bode well for this endeavor.

"! I assume that these streets will lose some or all parking? If so, that's pretty ballsy. I like it!"

Why? Will you like it when many of the businesses are forced to close because there is no parking? Will you be happy when entire pedestrian friendly business districts are destroyed and get replaced either by vacent storefronts or things that don't depend on walk-in customers, such as doctors offices and banks. What on earth would be good about this? You do know that businesses need some parking availability to survive, right?

By the way, I don't think there will be more than 8 people every day who otherwise would have driven who will instead use the Chicago Avenue rapid transit route. With the exception of people who absolutely need their vehicle at work, there is just about zero people who commute anywhere east of Halsted by car from anywhere on Chicago Avenue. That is the case pretty much all day, but certainly during rush hour. Everybody who will take a BRT route on that street otherwise would have just taken the #66 bus. Chicago Avenue from Halsted to Western (or at least Damen) has only recently become a bustling area with many unique businesses. The lack of parking and fewer street traffic (because of lane closures) will destroy it, just like State Street was destroyed when they outlawed cars in the early 1980's. A BRT on Halsted will also destroy neighborhoods (although admittedly, unlike Chicago Avenue, it may actually attract new riders). The more I think about this the more it seems that this is a terrible idea.

The bus lanes plan can hardly be compared with the State St mall debacle, both because cars will not be eliminated and because we are now in a far more transit-friendly period than were the '80s.

The challenge is to gradually strengthen transit culture without sacrificing the street-level businesses that currently (unfortunately) rely on cars. We still don't know what CTA's exact plans for the bus lanes are, whether they will eliminate parking or not. I think we should withhold judgment until we see how they're implemented and what the effects are. Development around the bus stops, for example, might offset any negative effects that less parking or less traffic would have. Making bus travel faster and more convenient is a wonderful goal, and we shouldn't smother the idea without seeing how it turns out.

If bus lanes are a success, then they'll be expanded to a 100 mile system, which would address your claim that the Chicago route wouldn't produce many new riders (incidentally the South Side routes seem likely to produce a lot of new riders). In the meantime, it certainly seems worthwhile to reward those who do use transit with a faster and a more pleasant ride.

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The bus lanes plan can hardly be compared with the State St mall debacle, both because cars will not be eliminated and because we are now in a far more transit-friendly period than were the '80s.
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Oh, really?

Sorry, but we're at the same place in the cycle of things that we were in the late '70s when the State Street Mall was being planned: Recession, and quickly rising gas prices with few people ever beliveing that things will ever swing the other way again. All that's missing is disco.

What is different is planners mistakenly belived that the State Street Mall would attract more trasit riders to State Street. There's no such illusion about BRT. BRT is all about skipping people through neighborhoods, rather than making them destinations.

So perhaps comparing it to how the State Street Mall negatively impacted business in the Loop, it should be compared to how the Ryan and the Congress Expressways tore their respective neighborhoods apart.

BRT is an overly ambitious program that benefits a few at the great expense of many. It may be less expensive to build than a real rapid transit line on rail, either elevated or underground, but building costs will be dwarfed by the social and economic costs that will reverberate for years.

This is not a good plan.

Anyone familiar with how one would fight a parking ticket against a private, for-profit company?

Posted by: Bob S. | May 12, 2008 at 08:20 PM

Don't tell me you've never heard this song:

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/l/lincolnparkpirates.shtml

"Sorry, but we're at the same place in the cycle of things that we were in the late '70s when the State Street Mall was being planned: Recession, and quickly rising gas prices with few people ever beliveing that things will ever swing the other way again."

Chicago's population numbers alone tell you things are far different now:
1970 3,366,957
1980 3,005,072
1990 2,783,726
2000 2,896,016

When the State St mall was tried, the city was in the middle of a massive tide of white flight, disinvestment, and deindustrialization. It wasn't necessarily a bad idea per se, it was just swamped by the strength of the suburbanization trend. And you're wrong about gas prices - just after the State St mall was started, gas prices collapsed and remained extremely low thruout the life of the mall.

For the last 15 years the city's jobs have been returning, and transit ridership is now steadily increasing. We need to try new things to keep it increasing and to reward those willing to get out of their cars.

Cheryl,

You got TOWED or got a TICKET from a private company? I didn't think private companies were able to ticket cars? If they did, however, it would be a big improvement from getting one of those impossible-to-get-off stickers slapped on your drivers windows by grocery store security guards when people park in the loading lane.

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For the last 15 years the city's jobs have been returning, and transit ridership is now steadily increasing. We need to try new things to keep it increasing and to reward those willing to get out of their cars.
<<<

And in the process kill-off the neighborhoods that are bisected by these super express routes.

If BRT were fully built, it would benefit folks in the outer reaches of the city, and the loop, while causing harm that will take decades to repair to the ring between the central business district, and the outer ring.

The limited first phase is worse. It has all the negatives of the full system, with few of the benefits.

Rusty, I guess I don't understand why you're so extraordinarily pessimistic about bus-only lanes, to the point of hyperbole like "it should be compared to how the Ryan and the Congress Expressways tore their respective neighborhoods apart." No buildings are being torn down, the road isn't being widened, and crossing the street will be just as easy.

Do you have any studies or numbers to support the idea that bus-only lanes destroy neighborhoods? Doesn't it make sense that people of all neighborhoods would benefit from faster commutes and that development will flourish around the bus stops? You seem to be assuming that most customers at neighborhood businesses don't live in the neighborhood - do you have any evidence for that?

We as a society need to start moving away from cars, and there will definitely be some painful adjustments. But as long as people live in these neighborhoods, there will be demand for neighborhood shops. And if bus-only lanes work well, that should draw people to live near the stops, providing a strong base of customers who aren't dependent on cars.

Rusty, I'm a BRT skeptic myself, but given that the stops will generally be a half-mile apart, meaning that most riders will not have to walk more than two blocks (a quarter mile), I'm just not seeing this neighborhood doomsday you're promising. The studies I'm familiar with (used in Kunstler's "Geography of Nowhere," for instance) say that people are generally willing to walk 10 minutes out of their way for an errand, in which time most commuters can easily cover more than two blocks.

You seem to be surmising that neighborhoods will fall apart because people will just pass through them instead of starting their commute, stopping in the middle, buying something, restarting their commute, and finishing it somewhere that's nowhere near that neighborhood, which I think is a pretty big stretch. Bluntly, I think that doesn't happen now, let alone after the introduction of the BRT system. They already pass through them. But if you insist on doing that, let's also consider that local stores are likely to benefit from people who actually live in the neighborhood who will now pass these places but wouldn't have before. More foot traffic equals more business.

Dude, I think you might've missed that Cheryl was commenting on my comments about Daley's announcement that he's privatizing traffic meter management, per Hilkevitch's Tribune column yesterday. (Although I actually haven't heard the song, so if there was a reference to that, it would've sailed over my head.) The circumstances under which the company could tow or ticket would presumably be defined in the contract. And since this will affect every parking spot on every Chicago street with storefronts, I'd think this would be a pretty big concern to anyone concerned about access to mom and pop businesses.

What I'm saying is that when you eliminate on-street parking, you harm businesses along that street. I would very much dispute that people will walk ten minutes to get to a local business that has no parking.

Other congestion decreasing measures also harm the neighborhood by making it harder to cross the street. If you have coordinated traffic signals at the half-mile streets that help increase the average speed of traffic from 12 mph to 28 mph, people trying to cross at crosswalks between those half-mile streets will find themselves in greater peril.

There are already enough neighborhoods that have been turned into wastelands because their main streets have been turned into raceways.

And while this is being tauted as something great for mass transit, the fact is that it's for the benefit of all motor vehicles.

This money isn't so your bus ride can be faster. This money is so traffic can move faster by getting the buses out of the way.

If the comute by a single ocupant vehicle is decreased by twice that of the bus rider's comute, then does it really help us get more people onto transit? Nope.

I'm sorry if I sound too harsh, but BRT is for the benefit of SOV drivers so they can fly past the parts of the city that slow down their comutes.

Mark my words: Before phase one is even done, they'll be tearing down buildings to reclaim the lost parking, and the inner-neighborhoods that have been undergoing gentification will start undergoing suburbanization. And we all know how well the suburbs work.

I notice Rusty didn't respond to the person who asked if he had any evidence that BRT caused this sort of thing. There are other existing BRT routes, after all. I guess he couldn't find any evidence for his position.

That's because there are no implimentations of BRT like this anywhere in the US to compare it to.

There are some implimentations of bus lanes, and generally they're on streets that no longer have any commercial activity.

Most cities don't have the balls to kill a commercial district by removing all the on-street parking -- at least not after their expeiriences doing so in the '60s.

Rusty's pronouncements seem to assume that local bus service will disappear, leaving only 1/2-mile-apart bus stops. Anything is possible, but I doubt anyone here would advocate that. So that's kind of a straw man.

Anyway, I'm all for limiting parking in walkable neighborhoods if good bus service is provided. It's time to put the brakes on this obsession that our society has with driving everywhere; it's not sustainable and it's a blight on the city for half our streets to be a perpetual traffic jam. If local businesses want to use some of their real estate to provide off-street parking, then hey - it's a free country. But society would be better served by using public streets for improved transit that can be used by many, rather than parking spots for a few.

I don't assume that local service will disappear.

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I'm all for limiting parking in walkable neighborhoods if good bus service is provided. It's time to put the brakes on this obsession that our society has with driving everywhere; ... If local businesses want to use some of their real estate to provide off-street parking, then hey - it's a free country.
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So what makes a neighborhood "walkable"?

What makes a neighborhood walkable is a healthy mix of residential, commercial, and employment. It's naive to think that this can exist today without convinient parking.

If you eliminate on-street parking, and you don't replace it, the mix of the neighborhood will suffer. Sure, some employers and retailers can exist without enough parking, but some won't be able to. They will move away, and there aren't a lot of businesses willing to move into places that don't have parking. Thus your walkable neighborhood becomes less walkable.

You could replace the lost on-street with off-street parking. It'll fit in the spaces vacated by the businesses that can't exist without on-street parking. If you don't subsidise it, you'll narrow the kind and type of business that can afford to be in the neighborhood. But whether you subsidise it or not, parking lots don't make a neighborhood more walkable, either!

Essentially you can push your agenda that the car isn't welcome, but if businesses can't be profitable without parking spaces for those unwelcomed cars, you'll be indirectly, but certainly, chasing those businesses away, too. And there goes the walkablity with them.

Instead of blighting the inner neighborhoods with congestion relief measures that benefit outsiders, the neighborhoods should be strengthened. BRT doesn't do that.

By the way... Some aspects of the plan ring very familar to something Milwaukee did in the early '90s. It was called MetroLink. It involved congestion relief measures, super-express buses, bus lanes, and even a transit hub.

So what happened?

Well, thanks to the bus lanes, traffic on Fond du Lac Avenue moved better than ever! Transit ridership went up briefly, but then crashed. And much of Fond du Lac Avenue is a wasteland.

In all fairness, Fond du Lac Avenue was a wasteland already, but efforts at neighborhood revitilization fizzled as no one wanted to invest in a street who's only purpose was to speed suburbanites downtown.

They dismatled the whole Metrolink system, and reabsorbed it, differently painted buses and all, back into the remaining system. (And it's failure has made politicians in Milwaukee even more cautious about providing transit funding.)

On the other hand, the traffic still moves quickly past the abandoned store fronts, and nearly twenty years later, no one wants to invest in the area.

BRT just isn't worth the cost.

Can you make this a little more concrete Rusty? What neighborhoods and what streets do you have in mind?

I've lived in Rogers Park and Hyde Park. My impression is that the businesses on Clark would do fine without parking and the businesses on Sheridan already do fine without it. Devon might be a better example for your argument. Hyde Park isn't really relevant since urban renewal eliminated most of 55th's capacity for retail and 51st probably would not be chosen for a bus lane.

I think one key question is whether people in the neighborhood who normally walk to stores are enough to sustain the businesses. You seem to think most customers are driving in from outside the neighborhood (I don't buy your claim that people won't walk 10 minutes to do errands), so I'm interested to see which neighborhoods you're thinking of.

Equally important is how quickly the city is converting from car dependence to relying on transit. As transit becomes more important, bus lanes will become key drivers of economic activity, promoting development around the stops. You're making important points and we have to be careful with implementation, but I think bus lanes will be more helpful in aiding the transition than costly in terms of lost businesses.

Rusty, honestly, I've tried to understand your position and to give you the benefit of the doubt (and, as I say, I'm skeptical of BRT myself), but I just don't get your scorched-earth scenario. You're not pointing to any citations or historical examples. (You mention MetroLink, but it doesn't sound at all comparable to the plan for the four pilot streets, where no stop will be more than two blocks away. You know? A two-block walk. There are already many, many thriving areas in the city where people have a two-block walk to the nearest stop, where there isn't a stop on every corner.)

And your odd self-contradictions like "I would very much dispute that people will walk ten minutes to get to a local business that has no parking" (which, if I'm guessing right at what you're *trying* to say, has been thoroughly disproven by urban planners) and "What makes a neighborhood walkable is a healthy mix of residential, commercial, and employment. It's naive to think that this can exist today without convinient parking" just make me think you've got some passion here, even though you can't cite any *comparable* instances, that's turning this into a Chicken Little moment. I guess in 2016 when the Olympics come to a Chicago so desolate that it makes Detroit look like a thriving urban paradise, I'd better be ready to apologize.

This whore endeavor is a failure in the works, by the time this thing gets done oil futures will have passed $200 a barrel which means gas prices around $6-8 a gallon. Even hybrid "clean" buses only get like 6mpg at best, so this isn't a great solution. Light rail is the way to go.

*This whole endeavor, Freudian slip, really.

I like monorails more than light rails.

Mono = One
Rail = Rail

Back on topic. I agree with you Stephen.

It seems that the $153 million should be used to start a light rail project. Apparently average light rail cost in the US is around $35 million per mile. We could have over four miles of light rail if costs were kept in check... I would argue that light rail is much more cost effective operationally than running buses. Albeit with much higher initial capital costs.

Bob S.:

Where in the world are you getting that the bus stops will be every two blocks? Everything I've read has said that they will be every half mile. They are already around every two blocks in most places.

You're misreading me, MK. I thought I was actually really clear when I mentioned it:

"... given that the stops will generally be a half-mile apart, meaning that most riders will not have to walk more than two blocks (a quarter mile) ..."

To really put this math out there in case it's still uncertain for anyone, generally in Chicago, eight blocks are a mile, four blocks are a half-mile, and two blocks are a quarter-mile. If stops are a half-mile apart, once you're on the street where the buses are, you aren't going to be more than a quarter-mile, or two blocks, away from a stop.

Some details on the 4 BRT's, including traffic movement and station design, can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/5dgu35

then click on "Bus Rapid Transit Report"

So then are we clear parking isn't yet being eliminated?

And lots of streets already have rush-hour no-parking now. Most of River North does, etc.

BTW 51st Street (aka East Hyde Park Blvd) is a residential streeet, not likely to ever become commericial..

As I understand it, the loading zone pricing will be similar to one in Manhattan. (See the last graf on this page: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/motorist/parktruck.shtml.) Curbside loading zones downtown will be equipped with "parking meters." (Right now, they're completely free.) High meter rates during the day will encourage vehicles to make deliveries quickly, or off peak. Fewer vehicles hogging the loading zones means fewer people double-parking or standing in curbside tow zones -- such lane blockage accounts for 60%? of downtown delays, and really slow down bus service (which has to operate in the curb lane).

This does not affect alley loading docks, mom & pop shops in the neighborhoods, the annual fee paid to Business Licensing to establish a loading zone (huh?), whatever.

And yes, most of the streets identified already have rush-hour parking restrictions, and these will be rush-hour only bus lanes.

Rapid buses (which is what this is; there's no plan to take buses out of mixed traffic, which would be true BRT) will not kill off neighborhoods. Bus stops every four blocks = by definition have extra time on their hands; they should park further away and walk!

"So then are we clear parking isn't yet being eliminated? "

Nothing on the link in John T.'s post suggests that parking is not being eliminated. It doesn't say anything about parking at all. It does give diagrams (with nothing really to explain what in the world they are trying to say) that does not seem to include parked cars.

"And lots of streets already have rush-hour no-parking now. Most of River North does, etc."

And perhaps that is one reason why River North contains almost nothing except for restuarants and the occasional dry cleaners. I have nothing against restuarants. And, in fact, they are important to the vitality of neighborhoods. But the neighborhoods that most people would consider to be the best in the city also have other things.

By the way, I just love this sentence on page 2 of the report: "To meet Federal requirements it will be
necessary to do additional planning and
public outreach." The CTA is not even trying to hide its reluctance to consult with and get input with those who are affected by this service. They will only go through the motions of this because somewhere in the federal contract they are required to. As always, they assume they already have the answers to everything and that actually getting advice from those who are affected by the service is just a distraction that they'll only do if someone pulls their teeth. And, of course, at that time they are not really going to consider anything anybody else says.

"And yes, most of the streets identified already have rush-hour parking restrictions, and these will be rush-hour only bus lanes."

Chicago Avenue doesn't. I don't believe Halsted does either(maybe it does in spots). I don't know about the others.

As far as I can tell Huberman's presentation provides no new information. I'm baffled about how prepaid boarding is supposed to work, since the bus stop sketch in the presentation doesn't seem to include any real barriers. Whether parking will be eliminated also remains a mystery.

"To really put this math out there in case it's still uncertain for anyone, generally in Chicago, eight blocks are a mile, four blocks are a half-mile, and two blocks are a quarter-mile. If stops are a half-mile apart, once you're on the street where the buses are, you aren't going to be more than a quarter-mile, or two blocks, away from a stop. "

I really have a hard time believing that four city blocks is a half-mile, especially in places like Chicago Avenue where the blocks are extreamly small. Besides, your assuming that people will walk to the closest bus stop, regardless of which direction it is. I think many people will be very hesitent to walk very far in the opposite direction of where they are going, even if that is closer that the nearest stop in the other direction. That has many important implications for pedestrian flow patterns.

What I find most absurd about all this is that they have repeatedly stated that their goal has been to reduce driving in the DOWNTOWN AREA. This goal is prominantly displayed in the pdf report linked by John T. For the life of me, I don't understand why that is the area they are targetting. For one thing, it is nearly impossible to do, especially with this plan that focuses mostly on people who commute in the peak direction during peak hours. As I've said before, these are the people, by far, who are already most likely to use public transportation due to the enormously higher parking costs relative to transit. Virtually everyone who works downtown who doesn't need a vehicle already uses public transportation. What do they think they are accomplishing by focusing on these people? If they want to reduce downtown congestion, they could focus on those who live downtown but work elsewhere. Perhaps reverse commute BRT's. I'm not advocating that. In fact, I think that is also a mistake. But it makes more sense if they are really trying to accomplish what they said they want to accomplish. And I'm not sure why they are focusing on downtown congestion anyway. The congestion in many other parts of the city (and the suburbs) is just as bad.

"I really have a hard time believing that four city blocks is a half-mile, especially in places like Chicago Avenue where the blocks are extreamly small." -- MK

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Well, MK, put your disbelief aside. It's true.

What you have to understand is that within many blocks there are streets at half-block intervals. An example would be Damen (2000 W) and Western (2400W). They are four blocks apart - 1/2 mile.

At Chicago, the full blocks are marked by Hoyne (2100W), Leavitt (2200W) and Oakley (2300). At Addison, those blocks are interrupted by Seeley (2030W), Hamilton (2130w), Bell (2230W) and Claremont (2330W) at 1/2 block intervals. Despite the number of streets, Damen and Western are four blocks aprt at both Chicago and Addison.

cart has it right; a city block is 100 in terms of street addresses. Hey--where most of the regular bus stops are! 0-800=1 mile, heading north or west. The 1st 3 or so miles going south from Madison are slightly different, I'm told. (Roosevelt is a mile south of Madison, for example)

"Virtually everyone who works downtown who doesn't need a vehicle already uses public transportation."

Are you sure about that? If you have numbers I'd like to see them. I'm pretty sure the Eisenhower wouldn't look like it does every rush hour if it really were only the people who need their cars during the day taking them downtown.

Just reading the Tribune comment boards reveals a large number of people who hold transit in contempt and drive for that reason. Hardcore jerks like those guys probably will never be persuaded to take a bus, but you have to figure there are a lot of other people who have similar feelings who would be more willing to switch if given a faster, more comfortable alternative to current buses, especially as gas prices rise.

"The congestion in many other parts of the city (and the suburbs) is just as bad."

Do you have any numbers for this, or examples from personal experience? I'm asking seriously - I've never commuted by car, so I have no feel for traffic in Chicago. It's just common sense that commuters to the Loop are by far the largest number going to any one area, and since the problem is most concentrated there it should be addressed there first. But if you have other suggestions I'd be interested in hearing them.

Anecdotal evidence here--I used to live in Lincoln Square, and I now live in the Gold Coast.

Traffic is FAR FAR FAR worse in Lincoln Square than in the Gold Coast, at any time of day. Particularly on Western going through the Montrose to Foster corridor. Driving downtown is like a dream compared to that. Now obviously, the peak-direction traffic from 5:15-5:45 on LaSalle and Wacker aside, of course.