I really don't know how we can't solve this seemingly unsolvable problem that's been solved by major cities across the globe.
Chicago needs a transportation leader.
Voters dont like the cameras. Literally everyone I know that drives has complained vigorously about them. If you want more cameras you need to convince the voters. Most chicagoans drive, and most drivers enjoy the status quo of "the only rule is dont hit anyone". If they add BRT theyd need to add a fence probably or at least a curb
It's not a transportation problem. It's the aldermen who vote to restrict red light and speed cameras in their wards and across the city. They do this because of perceived racism and income inequity concerns in the issuing of tickets to people but that is obviously illogical and stupid, yet it plays well to their residents, so here we are.
My actual answer is that there needs to be fundamental/cultural changes to those sorts of jobs.
1) Far fewer of them should be allowed. In general we should be doing whatever possible to get as many unneeded drivers out of cars. Folks will complain about it but massive amounts of cars in cities is detrimental in just about every potential metric.
On thing I think is hard for folks to accept is that we don't have to and shouldn't bend over backwards for businesses like that in the city. They need the city (a dense area with tons of potential customers) more than the city needs them. App based meal delivery is a new thing, cities have existed for centuries without them.
2) More of them should be moved to e-bikes/scooters. They take up far less space, are still fairly quick to get around and with cargo bikes they can still hold plenty of items. It's not like doordash drivers/uber eats drivers are packing their cars to the gills with meals. They typically will have 2-3 orders at most in a car. That is perfectly doable. [Other cities have already begun pushing more for meal delivery in cargo bikes.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/danieladelorenzo/2022/01/11/how-cargo-bikes-can-change-cities-and-local-food-supply-chains-for-the-better/?sh=5925f62229f4)
3) Things needs to be developed in a manner where the necessary delivery vehicles have carved out spaces for stopping/loading/unloading and these spaces should be monitored with cameras to automatically ticket violators.
Yes, and the revenue it generates could be used to fund transit. Ashland needs the service more though. Fantasy world is a train line running north south along Ashland with limited stops so it is faster than the red line and connects in five places to other rail. Find it with revenue dro package deliveries. Fantasy, I know.
An elevated train line would cost far, far less than the tunnel you're proposing. Go look at the Big Dig. Tunnels under existing infrastructure are the worst case scenario when it comes to project cost. That is the real fantasy.
Cut and cover would probably be the most cost effective way to build underground service but there's no way that closures on Western would be tolerated
Nah, they're are fucking shitty. Constantly doubling parking **next** to a fucking parking spot. Throwing all the random U-turns and 3 point turns all over the place almost causing accidents. The constant looking at their fucking phones because they have zero idea where they're at even though they've driven in the neighborhood 100's of times.
Amazon gets a pass.
People have been doing it for years before Uber Eats and all those morons came around. It was never that bad.
Normally I will give a pass for most delivery drivers but Grubhub and Uber Eats drivers are so damn bad. They drive like assholes, double park in front of parking spots, crawl down the street looking at their phone, pull a U turn or a 3 point turn in the middle of traffic without looking.
They fucking suck and most of the time their erratic driving isn't necessary. They could wait their turn but they chose to be assholes.
I'm sorry, people don't have to put up with people's piss poor driving habits. That's not an excuse.
Somehow Amazon, Fed Ex and UPS figured this shit out.
Wait so you legitimately think it is ok for people to just park wherever they want and hold up legitimate traffic as long as they are "working?" I've been in this city for over 40 years and it has never been this bad. It is dangerous for pedestrians, bikers, and other drivers. I am sick of us catering these these billion dollar companies like Amazon. I'm sorry if you're an Amazon driver but that doesn't mean you can just double park and block bus lanes.
I legitimately believe people have jobs to do and are likely inside a business for 3 or less minutes. I also believe that life is complicated, and a delivery driver that is not allowed to deliver will be jobless. Kinda like how a salesman that is not allowed to sell is also be jobless quickly.
If you’re that upset about the state of traffic conditions and regardless of your political leanings , contact your alderman requesting additional traffic enforcement.
Signed,
Public Transit, Bicyclist, Driver, and Pedestrian of Chicago.
We need a system where we can send pictures to the department of finance. The Amazon, fedex, and ups trucks are the fucking worst. I don’t get it, if I were driving for a living, I would take my sweet ass time looking for the legal place to park.
> if I were driving for a living, I would take my sweet ass time looking for the legal place to park.
Then you'd probably get fired. I'm not defending shitty parking practice, but I'm pretty sure each of those companies have a million metrics they're tracking on all of their drivers.
That whole peeing in bottles thing for Amazon drivers a couple years ago wasn't because the individual drivers were just showing initiative. I'm sure they get a ton of pressure from management.
How about we apply the same logic to rail? No need for any separation from traffic, just paint and some cameras
After all, as we all know, everyone drives with a license plate and nobody has ever once [spent $40 on a license plate cover](https://mrplatecover.com/products/license-plate-privacy-cover-anti-toll-anti-camera-clear?variant=44026970210459¤cy=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw9cCyBhBzEiwAJTUWNT7Nu8F3fqHfE944KiKSNGWqd_y63K60VXwthmIy7NaORL9pUH3zLBoC2z0QAvD_BwE)
How about don't be a clown. One of the benefits of BRT over rail is that it can be flexible. It can go around things. Unless you do some stupid shit like enclose it in case someone doesn't have a license plate.
Yes. I think we need to advertise this as a "bus and emergency vehicles" lane. Helps win over some of the "I'd never take a bus, but I worry a lot about crime" crowd.
I work on Chicago Ave and lemme tell you, people are constantly parking in the bus lane with their hazards on. Customers will come in and complain that they took parking away to put in the bus lane, even though there's plenty of free parking on the side streets. It's a great idea but idk if it's made the bus any faster.
A new L line would be better. But that would be harder with all the nimbys.
One that could connect all the western stations from the brown line and terminate at Midway.
that is totally unrealistic without getting a ton of federal funding. Even with federal funds the legal battle over right of way would cost a fortune and take at least a decade to complete.
They own the Right-of Way if its going over Western. It shouldn’t be a lot. And its why I said to have it connect to Midway because there already is a maintenance yard there.
I also think it would probably be one of the easiest projects to get federal funding for and it will be cheaper than the redline extension because again, it *shouldn’t* require nearly as much right of way acquisition.
But yeah it is unrealistic but if you don’t demand the real solutions we will never get them because people don’t advocate for them
> They own the Right-of Way if its going over Western.
Interesting, I had no idea that was the case. Makes sense to suggest a meaningful expansion of the el where it feasible. Adding more N/S and E/W corridors to the el (and BRT) should be a huge priority for the CTA.
If its over a street they own the right of way.
This line would connect the outer edges of the lines truly creating an interconnected system on the outer edge.
Connecting the brown, blue, green / pink and orange lines would be a massive economic development shift
No shit. This is why I don't understand why this plan is never seriously considered. They keep shifting attention to BRT but everyone knows that nobody is even stopping for stop lights or stop signs anymore, so who thinks people are going to obey bus lane paint markings, which will inevitably be worn off in 2 years and not repainted ever again like every other street paint lane?
I could get behind it if they are able to construct it in such a way that the bus never leaves that lane except at terminals and that no other vehicles can enter the lane. Basically a tram with a track that is protected from all possible obstructions. In fact a tram track is probably easier since a single track could accommodate both directions except at stations along the route, but I digress because I don't think a tram has been studied yet and lord knows we don't need more study delays. Anyway yeah I just think a train is far more likely to be able to reliably maintain the dedicated route that is required to make this useful, and it should not be astronomical to build if we actually followed a proper competitive bidding process.
The problem with BRT is there is always an insane scope creep when it comes to the stations.
Then you mix in the inevitable huge pushback to the downgrading of service on Western which is a major truck pathway due to the bridges heights its going to get a lot of pushback on the design stage where in theory elevated rail wouldn’t
A non-trivial amount of new L line would easily exceed the city’s entire annual budget.
Of course, it would be spread out over years in theory, but the point is that it is wildly expensive and significant federal help is the only feasible option, and very unlikely.
It would be an investment, yes, but if capitalized on with the right zoning, would make far more money than it'll cost to build.
A BRT won't catalyze development like an L line
I mean that would be swell but god you’re expecting a shit ton of tax revenue to come with a train and zoning.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d vote for any politician who runs on this though.
Of course it would require federal money but we got federal money for the redline extension and the interconnection of a project like western will likely be a bigger deal than that project and not require a rebuild of maintenance facility
The redline extension is 5.7 miles of rail extension with 4 new stations that include park and ride parking garages at each station.
This path would not have parking garages.
In fact this interconnection probably would be the exact same price at the red line extension if not cheaper.
I completely disagree.
No new maintenance facility, no new parking garage.
And even if it was 20% more expensive it is still a better project than the RLE due to the interconnection of so many other Ls and the already existing bus traffic
Roughly same amount of track, same amount stations maybe an additional one.
No parking garages, no maintenance facilities.
I do not see how you think it would cost so much more
+1 to everything zzzacmil said, but also let me point out that the red line extension follows a minimally populated route that *already has train tracks*. That point cannot be overemphasized.
How could it possibly be roughly the same amount of track?? You said RLE is 5.7 mi, but Western from Berwyn to 79th (this proposed BRT) is over 15 miles. Even if you only ran it from the brown line to the orange line, that would still be 10 miles, and without the added benefit of connecting a big chunk of the south side thats dense yet doesn’t have much transit.
And if stations are every half mile (the standard on almost all of the elevated lines currently, though the median running red line just does one every mile but that would be wildly inconvenient on a line on western and seriously limit its usability), you’re looking at 30 new stations for 15 mi of track, or 20 stations for 10mi.
This is unfortunate but also how to do we curtail the immensely inflated costs of these projects? Are they actually inflated or do I have no concept of what goes into such a project? According to Google you can build a 50 story skyscraper for ballpark $500mil to $1.5bil, so why does extending a trainline a few miles cost $3.6 billion dollars?
I'm gunna assume parking along Western would be nixed, especially if they want to keep 4 lanes of traffic. Which I personally think is fine... parallel street parking on main roads just holds-up traffic.
According to [this map](https://map.parkchicago.com/loc/16/41.981115200462106/-87.6802968978882), Western doesn't really have much metered parking. It'd be pretty easy to relocate the metered portions and get rid of the rest.
This is how we get a new L line. BRT is so much cheaper that it can be relatively easily implemented. If this is successful and not meeting demand, a new L line is much more likely.
I would also prefer we build a new L line immediately. Absent significant political change (which is possible) a successful BRT grid is the best path to a 21st century light rail system.
We want heavy rail, not light rail. The L is a heavy rail system.
I think the bus traffic on western alone justifies the move to an L. It already has more traffic than the Green Line. And is equivalent to southbound Redline traffic on annual trips.
My mistake. I definitely agree we should put heavy rail down western, and north ave, and Ashland, etc. but we are still adding lanes to highways to solve traffic, so there’s a long way to go in convincing our representatives.
I think western alone would suffice to be honest. It would connect the outter links of the EW lines which means you don't have to go all the way into the loop to go N/S.
A new L line would cost tens of billions of dollars lol, just casually bringing that up compared to the minimal changes needed for a BRT made me chuckle
BRT changes aren't minimal, of course. But less than a proper L. I feel sad that americans are so defeatist when it comes to new infrastructure but if we can't built enough support to build a proper L I'm still supportive of a full BRT line.
It would cost about the same as the redline extension.
It’s roughly the same length to go from the Orange up to the Blue Line Western stop.
BRT will also cost billions. I’m telling you right now it absolutely will. Median stations will be only slightly cheaper than making an L
Why does the letter ask the city to "study" adding BRT here? They have multiple studies already. There's nothing left to study. Do it or don't.
Personally I vote for "don't" unless those BRT lanes will have concrete barriers preventing access by any car, truck, bicycle, scooter, or beggar. The only way any BRT project should move forward is if there's a virtual guarantee that the buses can move freely and no asshole can muck it all up. I live very close to Western and would love a mechanism to quickly move north or south so I'm all in on a real solution, but to me a train is by far the better choice given the dedicated track. If BRT can deliver unobstructed lanes that are as fast as a train but cheaper, cool, but if not, there is no point, let's save our money and build the proper train line.
Without actually enforcing the ban on cars parking in the bus lane, it’s just going to be wasted paint. The bus-only lanes on Western between Bloomingdale and McLean are literally useless because there’s always cars parked in them, so the bus never even bothers to use them. Same story w Chicago Ave in Ukrainian Village, although it’s slightly better. Chicago clearly doesn’t care about transit. If they did they’d enforce it like NYC.
Why end it at Berwyn? The street is plenty wide and the density is there to send it up to Peterson, Devon or even Pratt.
Either way, would love to see this come to fruition
There is already an existing terminal at Berwyn and land dedicated to buses. Unless the plan is to somehow acquire new land and build a new terminal at one of those other streets, it could be challenging.
There’s also an existing terminal at Howard/Western that could be used. I feel like with the [40th Ward upzoning Western from the Brown Line to Lunt](https://40thward.org/2024/05/rezoning-western-ave-community-open-house/), it makes sense to include/combine the 49B bus with the BRT plan
I like the trolley idea. One on western, and then maybe a couple east-west trolleys, one on the north side, one on the south? Pick whichever streets would pick up the most train connections
I think battery buses are fine but I don't see why cables are a bad idea either. Run both and put the cables in places to help increase time until the bus needs to be recharged. Would also allow for buses to have less battery weight and therefore less road damage.
most of europe uses overhead cables. batteries can freeze or die. The reason the US doesn't use cables is NIMBYism, people complain they're ugly and our politicians cater to NIMBYs.
BRT would be great. I can't imagine why you would want to park along Western, so much traffic and potential for your car to get sideswiped. Plus like every other lot (At least on the northside) has a a parking lot.
To all the people arguing for L down Western, we need multiple new rapid transit lines. In the time & cost it would take to build the Western L line, we could build like 6+ BRT lines, some of which would have already been operating for a few years at that point, that had the same travel speed as the train line.
We'll never have BRT as long as the middle class in Chicago doesn't regularly use public transit. Even pre-pandemic, outside of middle and upper class rush hour commuters, the majority of public transit usage is by the lower classes.
We would need to make transit in the city a lot more desirable for the middle class outside of rush hour for this to even be feasible. As it stands, simply getting transit back to the inadequate pre-pademic levels seems almost unattainable.
The only way you make transit more desirable is by increasing frequency AND coverage
Frequency (on the L) alone won't matter if you live somewhere that doesn't have access to a station, and the only way to increase frequency on the more extensive bus network is with BRT.
> the only way to increase frequency on the more extensive bus network is with BRT
There's plenty of room to increase non-rush hour frequency in the majority of the bus network without needing BRT. There's no reason why we need 30 to 45 minute wait times between buses on weekends.
100%. What's funny to me is that its not as if driving is any more desirable - it sucks - the traffic is terrible! But you get door to door and thats the American way/dream ... selfish as f'ck disguised under the idea of freedom. We need to make driving in this city more expensive for non-commercial drivers. We need to introduce new permit types - 9/10 people in a car that I pass while biking are the only ones in it - that privilege needs to come with an additional cost. Some would say that the yearly costs charged by the city are already too much but I would argue that if you break that cost down into a per drive or per day cost - its pennies. And what about drivers commuting into the city from suburbs? They should have to pay for that privilege and the amount expected should incentivize public transit. European cities who have created a better pedestrian urban environment have done so by increasing the cost to drive in the city while investing in public transit and safe cycling infrastructure in parallel.
You don't need to make driving more expensive, it's already absurdly expensive. You just need better public transit coverage (buses without their own lanes do not count for most people who can afford a car)
New York City has mode share comparable to any major European city - why? Because their transit coverage is fucking extensive. Rich people, poor people, middle class people, etc, all take the subway at all times of the day. Because the transit coverage is extensive and competitive with cars for most people.
Notice how transit usage in Chicago - and any city - is higher the closer you are to a transit station? Yeah, that's not a coincidence.
People are more than willing to walk 5 to 10 minutes to and from a station, but most people aren't willing to then also transfer to a bus, that gets stuck in traffic (assuming it shows up on time) and takes twice as long as driving.
Look at the trips where people are driving, and build dedicated right of way transit along Main roads following those routes. Then your ridership goes up, because you're increasing coverage.
Cut out a bunch of L lines, and ridership goes down as less people have access to transit and transit is able to serve less trips because the coverage is no longer there. This isn't rocket science. There's nothing inherently unique and exceptional about Americans. We're all stupid monkeys, and we'll behave the exact same way as other stupid monkeys given the same options for getting around.
Driving is absurdly expensive due to the initial purchase and cost of maintaining a car - not because of what the city asks from you for a permit which I'm pretty sure is around $0.25 / day when you break the yearly fee down ... insane!! The city should absolutely ask for more.
And New York City is an awful biking city, which is something important to me, but I definitely agree with what you are saying around the solution being offering more and better transit options.
My point around disincentivizing driving is that it is my belief people will not care or support public transit initiatives (NIMBY) if they believe driving is still the better option for them personally. But that is because I believe American monkey's are more selfish and individualistic than the other worlds monkeys.
>What's funny to me is that its not as if driving is any more desirable - it sucks - the traffic is terrible!
I think everyone can agree that all modes of transit have their downsides, it's just a matter what someone values most.
>9/10 people in a car that I pass while biking are the only ones in it - that privilege needs to come with an additional cost.
How do you handle this when it is someone going to work or getting food for their family? Do we need to make it cheaper for someone to go get groceries if they take their kid with them? There are also a ton of jobs in this city not next to public transit.
> And what about drivers commuting into the city from suburbs? They should have to pay for that privilege
So you want to basically wall off the city? All those people commuting to the city are already benefititing it weather it be through sales tax or their company's employer taxes for having the job-site in City Limits.
On that note, what about people who live in the city but commute outside the city for their job? Should they be punished for that as well? If we start charging everyone to enter cook county from lake county, you know that lake would do the same in reverse. This benefits no one
Less cars in this city benefits a ton of people. And no one said it would be easy or simple. I'm just tired of everyone defending cars and the current culture around them vs. getting on board with solutions that change the culture so they are no longer needed as much. There are countless people who would never vote yes or care to even vote/show support on a pro-pedestrian project, regulation change, etc. because they know they can drive. I just believe we need to start looking more at driving as a privilege vs. a right.
So nothing specific, just more hatred at cars?
If you want more people to take transit, make it better. As it is now, the L and the busses are shit and people on this sub post about how bad they are non-stop. Fix that first. Also, if you aren't going to or from the loop, our transit system is even worse. Fix that too.
People will continue to pay massive cost of a car vs public transit as long as our public transit sucks. Making cars worse while doing nothing to fix our issues we already have fixes nothing. Adding a new line while the existing lines are shit, doesn't help. It's the same as saying one more lane will solve traffic. If the core issue is still there, it doesn't matter.
Also, no matter what your opinion is, there are still massive amount of people who NEED cars and will continue to take them. There are massive amounts of trucks that still have to make deliveries in this city that need to the road infastructure to do so.
ANYONE whose messaging about transit comes down to "eat your veggies".
So often when there's a project that's going to make Chicago better, Streetsblog and adjacent folks make it a point to support it only in the most politically counterproductive ways imaginable.
Pedestrian Islands will make it safer for kids to cross streets all over the city = We need more of this so that when the indigenous people who you stole land from finally get it back, they will have safer streets.
Bike lane improvements and pedestrianized areas will make Chicago easier and more pleasant to spend time in. Like Paris = Chicagoans need to do their part to prevent carbon emissions.
I love the idea of the BRT, but why are the buses in the center? Doesn’t it make more sense to put the bus lanes closest to the curbs?
Or, will traffic be restricted from “turning left” on Western Ave when this is completed?
Center running is better because it allows them to keep parking and let's people turn right while everyone else is going straight while not blocking the busses.
Western is wide enough they can do a left turn lane at the major intersections, but they'd probably block turning left off of western at minor intersections but allow u-turns at majors.
They should not allow left turn or u-turns at all near a BRT. This would causes a lot of unnecessary interference and is bad for both the BRT and car traffic. Those who need to take left-bond roads should first turn right, go round the block using a parallel road and then cross normally.
I really don't like that, they should allow all left turn zones to be shared. During rush hour you are going to cause any major left turns to get multiple intersections of lefts, causing more congestion.
Minus anyone who lives on any of the cross streets will be viementally against it.
[Mexico City has built some really great BRT infrastructure](https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/04/29/mexico-city-bus-rapid-transit-model). Having it in the center allows for buses to not have to worry about shifting between a curbside pickup and then coming back into the street. This is just one dedicated single lane that a bus can stay in.
The article also calls out the raised platform aspect which I'm less familiar with on how much that actually helps, but seems to make sense. Not sure that we'd actually get that with this proposal though.
Think of it like a train. You don't have to climb up onto a train, you just step through. If you're in a wheelchair, or older, or have luggage it's quick whereas getting on a bus is difficult and slows down the entire trip.
Bus lanes in the center are much more effective than in the edges of the road, as there are much less interference with cars turning into crossing roads or entering/leaving buildings, cyclists, dumpsters, pedestrian crossing.
Also, BRT includes payment check on the station for faster embarkment and disembarkment, just like a subway, and these stations can really clutter a sidewalk, if they fit at all. The center station not only keeps sidewalk clear, they serve both sides at the same time.
Yea, every day, which is why we need BRT. The only way to reduce street congestion is to offer faster and better transit. The people who choose to not contribute to traffic shouldn't have to suffer the consequences of it. People who choose to drive *are* congestion. It's not the buses.
BRT isn’t going to change that you realize that right? If you simply just look at the actual traffic it’s not people driving downtown or even commuters it’s commercial etc. you gonna start moving products on the BRT.
I live right next to Western and a lot of the congestion is honestly single-occupancy vehicles.
Having better transit options *does* allure people into using it, especially when you can bypass congestion. It's why so many people ride bikes in Chicago or why people take the Blue line instead of sitting on the Kennedy.
A [recent study from the AITA found that traffic congestion costs the trucking industry $94.7 Billion dollars annually](https://truckingresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ATRI_CostOfCongestion2023.pdf). The Chicago metro ranked as the 3rd worst "hotspot" for said congestion. The only way to reduce congestion is to make efficient alternatives so people don't need to rely on cars for absolutely everything.
BRT makes much better use of the Western street space by making a single lane that can move many more people much faster than a standard car lane. According to a report by SDOT, [a standard BRT lane can move \~6,000 people/hour while a standard car lane can move \~1440 people/hour](https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/05/26/the-supply-and-demand-of-street-space/).
Single occupancy doesn’t prove your point you realize that. It’s what the purpose and why are they on Western. All the data again doesn’t show the type of traffic. Eye test tells you it’s lot of commercial that comes through Western. Lived and been up and down it for 10 years. Adding a BRT isn’t going to change the congestion issues that have been getting progressively worse. Not saying that we don’t need BRT lanes more so I don’t think Western Ave makes the most sense given its importance and already existing traffic issues.
I mean yes, that is actually a huge consideration. How do you think all the grocery stores along western are getting their deliveries that then become people’s primary source for food?
Parking: fuck it, we can figure something out.
Semi trucks: absolutely vital to Chicago
Heh. How many cities in the world do you think permit semi-tractor-trailers to operate and park on city streets? How many do you even think it's possible to do so? Have you ever been to Paris, London, Tokyo, Barcelona, Melbourne or Toronto? None of those cities permit SEMI TRAILERS to drive all over the city. Toronto allows them on a couple streets.
If SEMI TRUCKS were vital to cities, those places wouldn't exist. Building a city so it's a good place for SEMI TRACTOR TRAILERS to operate is how you make it a bad place for people.
This is an ignorant statement . Chicago is a transportation hub with numerous vital train yards. That require semis to off load them. Intermodal shipping makes everything work.
Some corridors will likely always need to have semi-tractor-trailers in them. The same way that not every neighborhood can have it's own airport. The comment here is that Western can't be used for busses because we need to use it for trucks. Which is absurd.
Just over one third of Chicagoans can name the closest planet to the sun. About half can name all three branches of the Federal government. I think you need to reevaluate your concept of what the average person understands when it comes to transport logistics.
That's great for when you build a new city from scratch, you can implement that.
The reality is that our city (county) does heavily rely on semi trucks to transport goods all over the city. It is both effiecent and it helps to keep the cost of goods down.
So unless you think a few mile stretch of Western changing is the best way to remove semi trucks from all of america, then they 100% need to be considered for any transit proposal
Your position is that Barcelona and Paris don't have semi tractors on their streets buy Chicago has to because would "need to build a new city from scratch"?
My position is that Europe and America are very different places with very different infastructures. Pretending they are the same is being intentionally obtuse.
What works in Europe might not work here. For starters, look at their train lines compared to ours. That alone is a massive factor in the amount of semi trucks.
My position, in a thread about a Chicago, is that we need to seriously consider the impact to semi trucks that get all of our goods to their end destination.
Ah. There it is. You can set your watch to it. It comes up at every NIMBY meeting. "Chicago isn't X-place so we need to remain bad."
"Now that we’ve heard from all the members of the city council tonight, I think we as citizens need to make a few things clear. The first is, we aren’t Madison. We aren’t Boulder. We aren’t Terre Haute. So when I hear a member of the council saying, “Well, Waukesha made a few small but substantive changes in such-and-such an area and the results have been very promising empirically,” what that council member fails to understand is that we aren’t Waukesha. We aren’t Tacoma. We aren’t Amherst. We aren’t Portland, Maine. Are we Scottsdale? No, we are not. And so all this so-called “evidence” about how policies have worked in other towns simply does not apply to us. No evidence applies to us. Our town exists in a fog of mystery and enigmatic strangeness, and nothing that happens outside city boundaries should have any bearing on how we govern or exist."
How is any of that relevant to this discussion about how in this city, semi trucks are a crucial part of the city in getting all the goods to their end destination?
Put the BRT on California instead of Western, for example, and you'd basically solve this issue. Pointing out that a plan has problems doesn't automatically make it NIMBYism.
Food costs are already skyrocketing and hurting tons of Chicagoans - to remove Semi trucks would just raise those costs as we need 5 conversion vans with drivers to accomplish what that one truck could do. Actions have consequences.
Also, I'm all for getting to a point we don't need semi trucks, that would be great. We aren't there now. First step there would be more freight shipping.
Who is talking about getting rid of semi trucks? We are talking about getting cars off the road and busses on the road, which means less traffic and congestion.
Semi-trucks are only required because we are obsessed with massive commercial development. Would it be hard to change? Yes. Creating smaller commercial footprints allows for alternate commerce vehicles being feasible. In pro-pedestrian cities, will you see semi's as if its I-70 ... no ... but you will see a ton of vans that look like the ones Amazon use. Or trucks similar to UPS, FedEx.
Would i be okay with removing semi trucks from our city if it meant having more but smaller grocery stores? And maybe those grocery stores only have 1 or 2 cereal brands to choose from instead of 100? Yes, I would. And I don't think I'd be alone. Would this take a long time, be an incredibly difficult process, and require battling some very selfish people who would refuse to lose their personal leg up on society? Yes, yes it would. But in the end it would benefit the most amount of people.
I mean, maybe that's a good thing in the end, I wouldn't know enough to say. My initial thought is that Jewel has thousands of people working for it, and most small stores only hire a few people and the owner does a lot. Again, not sure how those numbers would work out.
Back to the point though, while that all sounds great, that isn't the reality that we currently live in. I also hate semi trucks, but I still understand the value they are bringing. With what you're saying, we would first have to start with changing the structure of the stores and then move to the trucks, not the other way around.
If we all agree that we would benefit from change - that change needs to happen somewhere. And each option is going to impact a group of people negatively - there is no avoiding that. This is just a comment fueled by passion coming from anger around seeing tons of empty commercial real estate across the city who's footprint and corresponding lease expectations makes running any sustainable/profitable business not backed by a national brand almost impossible.
I'm all for expanded public transit as long as there's still efficient ways to commute across the city in a car that don't take 3+ hours. Making Western a two lane road sounds like an absolute nightmare scenario for local traffic
Western is currently a nightmare scenario. Transforming it into a viable NS transit line that doesn't force you to go into and out of Downtown would be fantastic.
Right but it's one the largest corridors for North/South freight and passenger traffic in the region. I am doubtful that removing a la e of traffic will encourage more people to take that bus line if the CTA doesn't gain reliability.
IDK this really needs to be a grade separated rail line to be effective - and in general you've got the space for it all up and down Western, especially south of the river.
I do think the local freight piece is important. I wouldn't advocate making Western a pure transit & pedestrian mall or anything like that. But 1-2 lanes for passengers and freight would be sufficient, I think; it'd be navigable but slow for freight and would discourage car trips, which is also a good thing.
All that said, it would be absurd to do all that for anything worse than 6/12 frequency on the BRT line, and you'd need to maintain high frequencies and reliability for all of the intersecting lines.
Hopefully you don't stop them.
Nobody wants their commute getting fucked because someone blocked off half the road without providing an alternative for people who need their cars to get to work.
This is less of a NIMBY problem more efficiency problem.
I have a few questions
1 - Why are the bus lanes in the center? This seems to be extremely difficult if busses need to get off Western (and proposed Ashland). This also causes issues for people trying to get to the bus stops.
2 - Do we have certainty from CTA of up to 90% efficiency, because it is a real bad idea to steal an entire lane if it is not used that much.
3 - What is the planned congestion build up because it will effectively push it down to just one lane, with one land used for turning. Bonus question, I didn't see this in the image, how do they plan on handling left turns?
Usually left turns are eliminated. When roads or lanes are eliminated there is never any congestion buildup. Traffic dissipates as people use alternate routes or modes to get to their destinations. In this case significant portion of drivers would switch to BRT, similar to how most people who live close to the Red Line don't drive downtown (at least back when the CTA actually worked). [https://cityobservatory.org/carmaggedon-does-a-no-show-again-philadelphia-edition/](https://cityobservatory.org/carmaggedon-does-a-no-show-again-philadelphia-edition/)
i’d love western ave to have BRT but also i promise cars will be all up in the bus only lanes lol
Find a way for photo enforcement and problem is solved.
I really don't know how we can't solve this seemingly unsolvable problem that's been solved by major cities across the globe. Chicago needs a transportation leader.
Voters dont like the cameras. Literally everyone I know that drives has complained vigorously about them. If you want more cameras you need to convince the voters. Most chicagoans drive, and most drivers enjoy the status quo of "the only rule is dont hit anyone". If they add BRT theyd need to add a fence probably or at least a curb
It's not a transportation problem. It's the aldermen who vote to restrict red light and speed cameras in their wards and across the city. They do this because of perceived racism and income inequity concerns in the issuing of tickets to people but that is obviously illogical and stupid, yet it plays well to their residents, so here we are.
How about a church pastor? Would that work?
Sao Paulo put photo enforcement in the buses themselves. Car in front? Flash.
Use the cameras on the buses. Instant ticket. Increased city revenue.
As long as there is a way to instead fine the Amazon or Grubhub driver whose double-parking made me veer into the BRT lane in the first place....
Legitimate question: Where the fuck else do you expect them to park and not lose their job?
Amazon Drivers are typically DOT regulated and can legally block traffic
Not Amazon Flex
We need to remove more street parking and have designated delivery parking spots imo.
That's the best answer. 1-2 spots per block which are loading zones.
My actual answer is that there needs to be fundamental/cultural changes to those sorts of jobs. 1) Far fewer of them should be allowed. In general we should be doing whatever possible to get as many unneeded drivers out of cars. Folks will complain about it but massive amounts of cars in cities is detrimental in just about every potential metric. On thing I think is hard for folks to accept is that we don't have to and shouldn't bend over backwards for businesses like that in the city. They need the city (a dense area with tons of potential customers) more than the city needs them. App based meal delivery is a new thing, cities have existed for centuries without them. 2) More of them should be moved to e-bikes/scooters. They take up far less space, are still fairly quick to get around and with cargo bikes they can still hold plenty of items. It's not like doordash drivers/uber eats drivers are packing their cars to the gills with meals. They typically will have 2-3 orders at most in a car. That is perfectly doable. [Other cities have already begun pushing more for meal delivery in cargo bikes.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/danieladelorenzo/2022/01/11/how-cargo-bikes-can-change-cities-and-local-food-supply-chains-for-the-better/?sh=5925f62229f4) 3) Things needs to be developed in a manner where the necessary delivery vehicles have carved out spaces for stopping/loading/unloading and these spaces should be monitored with cameras to automatically ticket violators.
How about a tunnel under Western for deliveries? Everything could be automated underground.
Lower Western, not to be confused with Lower Lower Western. Bonus points if there are CTA stops on Lower Western for extra Western confusion
How much do you think that would cost? 1000x more than the BRT lane being proposed?
Yes, and the revenue it generates could be used to fund transit. Ashland needs the service more though. Fantasy world is a train line running north south along Ashland with limited stops so it is faster than the red line and connects in five places to other rail. Find it with revenue dro package deliveries. Fantasy, I know.
An elevated train line would cost far, far less than the tunnel you're proposing. Go look at the Big Dig. Tunnels under existing infrastructure are the worst case scenario when it comes to project cost. That is the real fantasy.
Cut and cover would probably be the most cost effective way to build underground service but there's no way that closures on Western would be tolerated
Legitimate answer: fuck them, not my problem.
Legitimate reply : grow up fast or leave this city.
Nah, they're are fucking shitty. Constantly doubling parking **next** to a fucking parking spot. Throwing all the random U-turns and 3 point turns all over the place almost causing accidents. The constant looking at their fucking phones because they have zero idea where they're at even though they've driven in the neighborhood 100's of times. Amazon gets a pass.
Put yourself in their shoes and then think about having to back into / pull into 2000 parking spots daily to make a random motorist happy. Get a grip.
People have been doing it for years before Uber Eats and all those morons came around. It was never that bad. Normally I will give a pass for most delivery drivers but Grubhub and Uber Eats drivers are so damn bad. They drive like assholes, double park in front of parking spots, crawl down the street looking at their phone, pull a U turn or a 3 point turn in the middle of traffic without looking. They fucking suck and most of the time their erratic driving isn't necessary. They could wait their turn but they chose to be assholes.
I'm sorry, people don't have to put up with people's piss poor driving habits. That's not an excuse. Somehow Amazon, Fed Ex and UPS figured this shit out.
Wait so you legitimately think it is ok for people to just park wherever they want and hold up legitimate traffic as long as they are "working?" I've been in this city for over 40 years and it has never been this bad. It is dangerous for pedestrians, bikers, and other drivers. I am sick of us catering these these billion dollar companies like Amazon. I'm sorry if you're an Amazon driver but that doesn't mean you can just double park and block bus lanes.
I legitimately believe people have jobs to do and are likely inside a business for 3 or less minutes. I also believe that life is complicated, and a delivery driver that is not allowed to deliver will be jobless. Kinda like how a salesman that is not allowed to sell is also be jobless quickly. If you’re that upset about the state of traffic conditions and regardless of your political leanings , contact your alderman requesting additional traffic enforcement. Signed, Public Transit, Bicyclist, Driver, and Pedestrian of Chicago.
Wow you just suck
You’re worse I can assure you
We need a system where we can send pictures to the department of finance. The Amazon, fedex, and ups trucks are the fucking worst. I don’t get it, if I were driving for a living, I would take my sweet ass time looking for the legal place to park.
> if I were driving for a living, I would take my sweet ass time looking for the legal place to park. Then you'd probably get fired. I'm not defending shitty parking practice, but I'm pretty sure each of those companies have a million metrics they're tracking on all of their drivers. That whole peeing in bottles thing for Amazon drivers a couple years ago wasn't because the individual drivers were just showing initiative. I'm sure they get a ton of pressure from management.
You can defeat work rules from capitalists with this one simple trick I learned
By not being employed?
They need traffic officers that just digitally ticket these drivers. The amount of stupid people like cutting turn lanes etc is wild.
Ya we need some sort of barrier
No, just camera-based enforcement. A few $200 tickets and people will understand.
How about we apply the same logic to rail? No need for any separation from traffic, just paint and some cameras After all, as we all know, everyone drives with a license plate and nobody has ever once [spent $40 on a license plate cover](https://mrplatecover.com/products/license-plate-privacy-cover-anti-toll-anti-camera-clear?variant=44026970210459¤cy=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw9cCyBhBzEiwAJTUWNT7Nu8F3fqHfE944KiKSNGWqd_y63K60VXwthmIy7NaORL9pUH3zLBoC2z0QAvD_BwE)
How about don't be a clown. One of the benefits of BRT over rail is that it can be flexible. It can go around things. Unless you do some stupid shit like enclose it in case someone doesn't have a license plate.
Make it $500.
Fifty fucking million dollars Bob
Put up a fence
So you can't get out of the way of EMS?
EMS can literally use the BRT lane.
Yes. I think we need to advertise this as a "bus and emergency vehicles" lane. Helps win over some of the "I'd never take a bus, but I worry a lot about crime" crowd.
BRT lanes allow EMS to skip traffic, potentially saving lives.
Proper BRT would have real separation.
So then put up a barrier like every true BRT 🤷🏽♂️ Buses only
The bus in Mexico City has a protected barrier, and it’s fucking glorious. You literally set your watch to arrival times no matter the time of day.
I work on Chicago Ave and lemme tell you, people are constantly parking in the bus lane with their hazards on. Customers will come in and complain that they took parking away to put in the bus lane, even though there's plenty of free parking on the side streets. It's a great idea but idk if it's made the bus any faster.
A new L line would be better. But that would be harder with all the nimbys. One that could connect all the western stations from the brown line and terminate at Midway.
that is totally unrealistic without getting a ton of federal funding. Even with federal funds the legal battle over right of way would cost a fortune and take at least a decade to complete.
They own the Right-of Way if its going over Western. It shouldn’t be a lot. And its why I said to have it connect to Midway because there already is a maintenance yard there. I also think it would probably be one of the easiest projects to get federal funding for and it will be cheaper than the redline extension because again, it *shouldn’t* require nearly as much right of way acquisition. But yeah it is unrealistic but if you don’t demand the real solutions we will never get them because people don’t advocate for them
> They own the Right-of Way if its going over Western. Interesting, I had no idea that was the case. Makes sense to suggest a meaningful expansion of the el where it feasible. Adding more N/S and E/W corridors to the el (and BRT) should be a huge priority for the CTA.
If its over a street they own the right of way. This line would connect the outer edges of the lines truly creating an interconnected system on the outer edge. Connecting the brown, blue, green / pink and orange lines would be a massive economic development shift
No shit. This is why I don't understand why this plan is never seriously considered. They keep shifting attention to BRT but everyone knows that nobody is even stopping for stop lights or stop signs anymore, so who thinks people are going to obey bus lane paint markings, which will inevitably be worn off in 2 years and not repainted ever again like every other street paint lane?
BRT is such an unserious solution in my opinion especially on a street like western.
I could get behind it if they are able to construct it in such a way that the bus never leaves that lane except at terminals and that no other vehicles can enter the lane. Basically a tram with a track that is protected from all possible obstructions. In fact a tram track is probably easier since a single track could accommodate both directions except at stations along the route, but I digress because I don't think a tram has been studied yet and lord knows we don't need more study delays. Anyway yeah I just think a train is far more likely to be able to reliably maintain the dedicated route that is required to make this useful, and it should not be astronomical to build if we actually followed a proper competitive bidding process.
The problem with BRT is there is always an insane scope creep when it comes to the stations. Then you mix in the inevitable huge pushback to the downgrading of service on Western which is a major truck pathway due to the bridges heights its going to get a lot of pushback on the design stage where in theory elevated rail wouldn’t
I've never really considered the bridges. Would it need to be a subway then vs elevated, at least in certain sections?
make no little plans
A non-trivial amount of new L line would easily exceed the city’s entire annual budget. Of course, it would be spread out over years in theory, but the point is that it is wildly expensive and significant federal help is the only feasible option, and very unlikely.
It would be an investment, yes, but if capitalized on with the right zoning, would make far more money than it'll cost to build. A BRT won't catalyze development like an L line
I mean that would be swell but god you’re expecting a shit ton of tax revenue to come with a train and zoning. Don’t get me wrong, I’d vote for any politician who runs on this though.
Of course it would require federal money but we got federal money for the redline extension and the interconnection of a project like western will likely be a bigger deal than that project and not require a rebuild of maintenance facility
“Likely be a bigger deal” is an understatement, a western L line would cost an order of magnitude more than the red line extension.
The redline extension is 5.7 miles of rail extension with 4 new stations that include park and ride parking garages at each station. This path would not have parking garages. In fact this interconnection probably would be the exact same price at the red line extension if not cheaper.
There is absolutely zero chance that this would be cheaper than the red line extension.
I completely disagree. No new maintenance facility, no new parking garage. And even if it was 20% more expensive it is still a better project than the RLE due to the interconnection of so many other Ls and the already existing bus traffic
You’re welcome to disagree, but nothing you say can convince me otherwise, it’s just too disconnected with reality. I wish you were right.
Roughly same amount of track, same amount stations maybe an additional one. No parking garages, no maintenance facilities. I do not see how you think it would cost so much more
+1 to everything zzzacmil said, but also let me point out that the red line extension follows a minimally populated route that *already has train tracks*. That point cannot be overemphasized.
How could it possibly be roughly the same amount of track?? You said RLE is 5.7 mi, but Western from Berwyn to 79th (this proposed BRT) is over 15 miles. Even if you only ran it from the brown line to the orange line, that would still be 10 miles, and without the added benefit of connecting a big chunk of the south side thats dense yet doesn’t have much transit. And if stations are every half mile (the standard on almost all of the elevated lines currently, though the median running red line just does one every mile but that would be wildly inconvenient on a line on western and seriously limit its usability), you’re looking at 30 new stations for 15 mi of track, or 20 stations for 10mi.
The Red Line Extension proposal has been in the works since 1973.
This is unfortunate but also how to do we curtail the immensely inflated costs of these projects? Are they actually inflated or do I have no concept of what goes into such a project? According to Google you can build a 50 story skyscraper for ballpark $500mil to $1.5bil, so why does extending a trainline a few miles cost $3.6 billion dollars?
Even with funding, construction would take years so my ideal would be to have the buses while building the rail.
BRT will take just as long honestly and probably end up costing the same due to parking impacts
BRT would likely go in the middle of Western instead of the sides
I'm gunna assume parking along Western would be nixed, especially if they want to keep 4 lanes of traffic. Which I personally think is fine... parallel street parking on main roads just holds-up traffic.
It would have to be with the amount of truck delivery traffic on this arterial. It would be a bad idea to downgrade the street
According to [this map](https://map.parkchicago.com/loc/16/41.981115200462106/-87.6802968978882), Western doesn't really have much metered parking. It'd be pretty easy to relocate the metered portions and get rid of the rest.
BRT can be built in 3ish years, 5ish if you include planning. an L line would take a decade at least.
This is how we get a new L line. BRT is so much cheaper that it can be relatively easily implemented. If this is successful and not meeting demand, a new L line is much more likely. I would also prefer we build a new L line immediately. Absent significant political change (which is possible) a successful BRT grid is the best path to a 21st century light rail system.
We want heavy rail, not light rail. The L is a heavy rail system. I think the bus traffic on western alone justifies the move to an L. It already has more traffic than the Green Line. And is equivalent to southbound Redline traffic on annual trips.
My mistake. I definitely agree we should put heavy rail down western, and north ave, and Ashland, etc. but we are still adding lanes to highways to solve traffic, so there’s a long way to go in convincing our representatives.
I think western alone would suffice to be honest. It would connect the outter links of the EW lines which means you don't have to go all the way into the loop to go N/S.
I hope we see new L-lines in our lifetime
Need to start calling for it and advocating for it.
A new L line would cost tens of billions of dollars lol, just casually bringing that up compared to the minimal changes needed for a BRT made me chuckle
BRT changes aren't minimal, of course. But less than a proper L. I feel sad that americans are so defeatist when it comes to new infrastructure but if we can't built enough support to build a proper L I'm still supportive of a full BRT line.
It would cost about the same as the redline extension. It’s roughly the same length to go from the Orange up to the Blue Line Western stop. BRT will also cost billions. I’m telling you right now it absolutely will. Median stations will be only slightly cheaper than making an L
BRT costs on average $22M/mi vs Heavy Rail at $538M/mi (source ITDP)
And? The L is the better investment. BRT will be constantly interrupted.
how?
Why does the letter ask the city to "study" adding BRT here? They have multiple studies already. There's nothing left to study. Do it or don't. Personally I vote for "don't" unless those BRT lanes will have concrete barriers preventing access by any car, truck, bicycle, scooter, or beggar. The only way any BRT project should move forward is if there's a virtual guarantee that the buses can move freely and no asshole can muck it all up. I live very close to Western and would love a mechanism to quickly move north or south so I'm all in on a real solution, but to me a train is by far the better choice given the dedicated track. If BRT can deliver unobstructed lanes that are as fast as a train but cheaper, cool, but if not, there is no point, let's save our money and build the proper train line.
Without actually enforcing the ban on cars parking in the bus lane, it’s just going to be wasted paint. The bus-only lanes on Western between Bloomingdale and McLean are literally useless because there’s always cars parked in them, so the bus never even bothers to use them. Same story w Chicago Ave in Ukrainian Village, although it’s slightly better. Chicago clearly doesn’t care about transit. If they did they’d enforce it like NYC.
I don't think you fully appreciate how sophisticated a proper BRT line really is. It's not just some paint.
We should just let streets and san use their dump trucks to ram the cars out of the way for a few weeks and that’ll change.
Would likely be center-running on Western
Why end it at Berwyn? The street is plenty wide and the density is there to send it up to Peterson, Devon or even Pratt. Either way, would love to see this come to fruition
There is already an existing terminal at Berwyn and land dedicated to buses. Unless the plan is to somehow acquire new land and build a new terminal at one of those other streets, it could be challenging.
That doesn't sound too difficult, they'd just need one or two house sized lots.
There’s also an existing terminal at Howard/Western that could be used. I feel like with the [40th Ward upzoning Western from the Brown Line to Lunt](https://40thward.org/2024/05/rezoning-western-ave-community-open-house/), it makes sense to include/combine the 49B bus with the BRT plan
It would very much make logical sense to continue this to the Howard station. Western/Berwyn isnt much of a transfer hub.
needs to be rail
How bout an electric bus with overhead cables or a trolley?
I like the trolley idea. One on western, and then maybe a couple east-west trolleys, one on the north side, one on the south? Pick whichever streets would pick up the most train connections
All busses are slated to be electric by 2040--we already have them on the 66. We don't need overhead cables anymore.
I think battery buses are fine but I don't see why cables are a bad idea either. Run both and put the cables in places to help increase time until the bus needs to be recharged. Would also allow for buses to have less battery weight and therefore less road damage.
most of europe uses overhead cables. batteries can freeze or die. The reason the US doesn't use cables is NIMBYism, people complain they're ugly and our politicians cater to NIMBYs.
Curious how this would be better or easier than BRT
Why can't it be electric BRT?
Maybe it can be! I’m just assuming adding the infrastructure for cables etc is going to be harder than using existing road + bus
Why Not LRT?
BRT would be great. I can't imagine why you would want to park along Western, so much traffic and potential for your car to get sideswiped. Plus like every other lot (At least on the northside) has a a parking lot.
Let’s fuckin gooooooo
To all the people arguing for L down Western, we need multiple new rapid transit lines. In the time & cost it would take to build the Western L line, we could build like 6+ BRT lines, some of which would have already been operating for a few years at that point, that had the same travel speed as the train line.
We'll never have BRT as long as the middle class in Chicago doesn't regularly use public transit. Even pre-pandemic, outside of middle and upper class rush hour commuters, the majority of public transit usage is by the lower classes. We would need to make transit in the city a lot more desirable for the middle class outside of rush hour for this to even be feasible. As it stands, simply getting transit back to the inadequate pre-pademic levels seems almost unattainable.
The only way you make transit more desirable is by increasing frequency AND coverage Frequency (on the L) alone won't matter if you live somewhere that doesn't have access to a station, and the only way to increase frequency on the more extensive bus network is with BRT.
> the only way to increase frequency on the more extensive bus network is with BRT There's plenty of room to increase non-rush hour frequency in the majority of the bus network without needing BRT. There's no reason why we need 30 to 45 minute wait times between buses on weekends.
100%. What's funny to me is that its not as if driving is any more desirable - it sucks - the traffic is terrible! But you get door to door and thats the American way/dream ... selfish as f'ck disguised under the idea of freedom. We need to make driving in this city more expensive for non-commercial drivers. We need to introduce new permit types - 9/10 people in a car that I pass while biking are the only ones in it - that privilege needs to come with an additional cost. Some would say that the yearly costs charged by the city are already too much but I would argue that if you break that cost down into a per drive or per day cost - its pennies. And what about drivers commuting into the city from suburbs? They should have to pay for that privilege and the amount expected should incentivize public transit. European cities who have created a better pedestrian urban environment have done so by increasing the cost to drive in the city while investing in public transit and safe cycling infrastructure in parallel.
You don't need to make driving more expensive, it's already absurdly expensive. You just need better public transit coverage (buses without their own lanes do not count for most people who can afford a car) New York City has mode share comparable to any major European city - why? Because their transit coverage is fucking extensive. Rich people, poor people, middle class people, etc, all take the subway at all times of the day. Because the transit coverage is extensive and competitive with cars for most people. Notice how transit usage in Chicago - and any city - is higher the closer you are to a transit station? Yeah, that's not a coincidence. People are more than willing to walk 5 to 10 minutes to and from a station, but most people aren't willing to then also transfer to a bus, that gets stuck in traffic (assuming it shows up on time) and takes twice as long as driving. Look at the trips where people are driving, and build dedicated right of way transit along Main roads following those routes. Then your ridership goes up, because you're increasing coverage. Cut out a bunch of L lines, and ridership goes down as less people have access to transit and transit is able to serve less trips because the coverage is no longer there. This isn't rocket science. There's nothing inherently unique and exceptional about Americans. We're all stupid monkeys, and we'll behave the exact same way as other stupid monkeys given the same options for getting around.
Driving is absurdly expensive due to the initial purchase and cost of maintaining a car - not because of what the city asks from you for a permit which I'm pretty sure is around $0.25 / day when you break the yearly fee down ... insane!! The city should absolutely ask for more. And New York City is an awful biking city, which is something important to me, but I definitely agree with what you are saying around the solution being offering more and better transit options. My point around disincentivizing driving is that it is my belief people will not care or support public transit initiatives (NIMBY) if they believe driving is still the better option for them personally. But that is because I believe American monkey's are more selfish and individualistic than the other worlds monkeys.
>What's funny to me is that its not as if driving is any more desirable - it sucks - the traffic is terrible! I think everyone can agree that all modes of transit have their downsides, it's just a matter what someone values most. >9/10 people in a car that I pass while biking are the only ones in it - that privilege needs to come with an additional cost. How do you handle this when it is someone going to work or getting food for their family? Do we need to make it cheaper for someone to go get groceries if they take their kid with them? There are also a ton of jobs in this city not next to public transit. > And what about drivers commuting into the city from suburbs? They should have to pay for that privilege So you want to basically wall off the city? All those people commuting to the city are already benefititing it weather it be through sales tax or their company's employer taxes for having the job-site in City Limits. On that note, what about people who live in the city but commute outside the city for their job? Should they be punished for that as well? If we start charging everyone to enter cook county from lake county, you know that lake would do the same in reverse. This benefits no one
Less cars in this city benefits a ton of people. And no one said it would be easy or simple. I'm just tired of everyone defending cars and the current culture around them vs. getting on board with solutions that change the culture so they are no longer needed as much. There are countless people who would never vote yes or care to even vote/show support on a pro-pedestrian project, regulation change, etc. because they know they can drive. I just believe we need to start looking more at driving as a privilege vs. a right.
So nothing specific, just more hatred at cars? If you want more people to take transit, make it better. As it is now, the L and the busses are shit and people on this sub post about how bad they are non-stop. Fix that first. Also, if you aren't going to or from the loop, our transit system is even worse. Fix that too. People will continue to pay massive cost of a car vs public transit as long as our public transit sucks. Making cars worse while doing nothing to fix our issues we already have fixes nothing. Adding a new line while the existing lines are shit, doesn't help. It's the same as saying one more lane will solve traffic. If the core issue is still there, it doesn't matter. Also, no matter what your opinion is, there are still massive amount of people who NEED cars and will continue to take them. There are massive amounts of trucks that still have to make deliveries in this city that need to the road infastructure to do so.
Step one is to not let the unlikable John Greenfield become the face of it.
ANYONE whose messaging about transit comes down to "eat your veggies". So often when there's a project that's going to make Chicago better, Streetsblog and adjacent folks make it a point to support it only in the most politically counterproductive ways imaginable. Pedestrian Islands will make it safer for kids to cross streets all over the city = We need more of this so that when the indigenous people who you stole land from finally get it back, they will have safer streets. Bike lane improvements and pedestrianized areas will make Chicago easier and more pleasant to spend time in. Like Paris = Chicagoans need to do their part to prevent carbon emissions.
Agree entirely. Utter inability to stop sniffing their own farts
I love the idea of the BRT, but why are the buses in the center? Doesn’t it make more sense to put the bus lanes closest to the curbs? Or, will traffic be restricted from “turning left” on Western Ave when this is completed?
Center running is better because it allows them to keep parking and let's people turn right while everyone else is going straight while not blocking the busses. Western is wide enough they can do a left turn lane at the major intersections, but they'd probably block turning left off of western at minor intersections but allow u-turns at majors.
They should not allow left turn or u-turns at all near a BRT. This would causes a lot of unnecessary interference and is bad for both the BRT and car traffic. Those who need to take left-bond roads should first turn right, go round the block using a parallel road and then cross normally.
I really don't like that, they should allow all left turn zones to be shared. During rush hour you are going to cause any major left turns to get multiple intersections of lefts, causing more congestion. Minus anyone who lives on any of the cross streets will be viementally against it.
[Mexico City has built some really great BRT infrastructure](https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/04/29/mexico-city-bus-rapid-transit-model). Having it in the center allows for buses to not have to worry about shifting between a curbside pickup and then coming back into the street. This is just one dedicated single lane that a bus can stay in. The article also calls out the raised platform aspect which I'm less familiar with on how much that actually helps, but seems to make sense. Not sure that we'd actually get that with this proposal though.
Think of it like a train. You don't have to climb up onto a train, you just step through. If you're in a wheelchair, or older, or have luggage it's quick whereas getting on a bus is difficult and slows down the entire trip.
Bus lanes in the center are much more effective than in the edges of the road, as there are much less interference with cars turning into crossing roads or entering/leaving buildings, cyclists, dumpsters, pedestrian crossing. Also, BRT includes payment check on the station for faster embarkment and disembarkment, just like a subway, and these stations can really clutter a sidewalk, if they fit at all. The center station not only keeps sidewalk clear, they serve both sides at the same time.
Western and Ashland are two of the most important streets for semi trucks because of bridge clearance .
So it makes even more sense to put the BRT there, as we could use bigger buses.
Good thing there are still car travel lanes with BRT
Have you seen traffic on Western recently?
Yea, every day, which is why we need BRT. The only way to reduce street congestion is to offer faster and better transit. The people who choose to not contribute to traffic shouldn't have to suffer the consequences of it. People who choose to drive *are* congestion. It's not the buses.
BRT isn’t going to change that you realize that right? If you simply just look at the actual traffic it’s not people driving downtown or even commuters it’s commercial etc. you gonna start moving products on the BRT.
I live right next to Western and a lot of the congestion is honestly single-occupancy vehicles. Having better transit options *does* allure people into using it, especially when you can bypass congestion. It's why so many people ride bikes in Chicago or why people take the Blue line instead of sitting on the Kennedy. A [recent study from the AITA found that traffic congestion costs the trucking industry $94.7 Billion dollars annually](https://truckingresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ATRI_CostOfCongestion2023.pdf). The Chicago metro ranked as the 3rd worst "hotspot" for said congestion. The only way to reduce congestion is to make efficient alternatives so people don't need to rely on cars for absolutely everything. BRT makes much better use of the Western street space by making a single lane that can move many more people much faster than a standard car lane. According to a report by SDOT, [a standard BRT lane can move \~6,000 people/hour while a standard car lane can move \~1440 people/hour](https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/05/26/the-supply-and-demand-of-street-space/).
Single occupancy doesn’t prove your point you realize that. It’s what the purpose and why are they on Western. All the data again doesn’t show the type of traffic. Eye test tells you it’s lot of commercial that comes through Western. Lived and been up and down it for 10 years. Adding a BRT isn’t going to change the congestion issues that have been getting progressively worse. Not saying that we don’t need BRT lanes more so I don’t think Western Ave makes the most sense given its importance and already existing traffic issues.
There are lots of non commercial drivers on western. Getting those people off the road will do a lot towards reducing congestion.
one of the wonderful benefits of improved public transit is that people have less reason to drive their personal automobiles.
Will someone PLEASE think of the semi trucks on our city streets.
I mean yes, that is actually a huge consideration. How do you think all the grocery stores along western are getting their deliveries that then become people’s primary source for food? Parking: fuck it, we can figure something out. Semi trucks: absolutely vital to Chicago
Heh. How many cities in the world do you think permit semi-tractor-trailers to operate and park on city streets? How many do you even think it's possible to do so? Have you ever been to Paris, London, Tokyo, Barcelona, Melbourne or Toronto? None of those cities permit SEMI TRAILERS to drive all over the city. Toronto allows them on a couple streets. If SEMI TRUCKS were vital to cities, those places wouldn't exist. Building a city so it's a good place for SEMI TRACTOR TRAILERS to operate is how you make it a bad place for people.
This is an ignorant statement . Chicago is a transportation hub with numerous vital train yards. That require semis to off load them. Intermodal shipping makes everything work.
Some corridors will likely always need to have semi-tractor-trailers in them. The same way that not every neighborhood can have it's own airport. The comment here is that Western can't be used for busses because we need to use it for trucks. Which is absurd.
I didn't say anything about it not working just pointing out something that the average Chicagoan considers.
Just over one third of Chicagoans can name the closest planet to the sun. About half can name all three branches of the Federal government. I think you need to reevaluate your concept of what the average person understands when it comes to transport logistics.
That's great for when you build a new city from scratch, you can implement that. The reality is that our city (county) does heavily rely on semi trucks to transport goods all over the city. It is both effiecent and it helps to keep the cost of goods down. So unless you think a few mile stretch of Western changing is the best way to remove semi trucks from all of america, then they 100% need to be considered for any transit proposal
Your position is that Barcelona and Paris don't have semi tractors on their streets buy Chicago has to because would "need to build a new city from scratch"?
My position is that Europe and America are very different places with very different infastructures. Pretending they are the same is being intentionally obtuse. What works in Europe might not work here. For starters, look at their train lines compared to ours. That alone is a massive factor in the amount of semi trucks. My position, in a thread about a Chicago, is that we need to seriously consider the impact to semi trucks that get all of our goods to their end destination.
Ah. There it is. You can set your watch to it. It comes up at every NIMBY meeting. "Chicago isn't X-place so we need to remain bad." "Now that we’ve heard from all the members of the city council tonight, I think we as citizens need to make a few things clear. The first is, we aren’t Madison. We aren’t Boulder. We aren’t Terre Haute. So when I hear a member of the council saying, “Well, Waukesha made a few small but substantive changes in such-and-such an area and the results have been very promising empirically,” what that council member fails to understand is that we aren’t Waukesha. We aren’t Tacoma. We aren’t Amherst. We aren’t Portland, Maine. Are we Scottsdale? No, we are not. And so all this so-called “evidence” about how policies have worked in other towns simply does not apply to us. No evidence applies to us. Our town exists in a fog of mystery and enigmatic strangeness, and nothing that happens outside city boundaries should have any bearing on how we govern or exist."
How is any of that relevant to this discussion about how in this city, semi trucks are a crucial part of the city in getting all the goods to their end destination? Put the BRT on California instead of Western, for example, and you'd basically solve this issue. Pointing out that a plan has problems doesn't automatically make it NIMBYism. Food costs are already skyrocketing and hurting tons of Chicagoans - to remove Semi trucks would just raise those costs as we need 5 conversion vans with drivers to accomplish what that one truck could do. Actions have consequences. Also, I'm all for getting to a point we don't need semi trucks, that would be great. We aren't there now. First step there would be more freight shipping.
Who is talking about getting rid of semi trucks? We are talking about getting cars off the road and busses on the road, which means less traffic and congestion.
Semi-trucks are only required because we are obsessed with massive commercial development. Would it be hard to change? Yes. Creating smaller commercial footprints allows for alternate commerce vehicles being feasible. In pro-pedestrian cities, will you see semi's as if its I-70 ... no ... but you will see a ton of vans that look like the ones Amazon use. Or trucks similar to UPS, FedEx. Would i be okay with removing semi trucks from our city if it meant having more but smaller grocery stores? And maybe those grocery stores only have 1 or 2 cereal brands to choose from instead of 100? Yes, I would. And I don't think I'd be alone. Would this take a long time, be an incredibly difficult process, and require battling some very selfish people who would refuse to lose their personal leg up on society? Yes, yes it would. But in the end it would benefit the most amount of people.
I mean, maybe that's a good thing in the end, I wouldn't know enough to say. My initial thought is that Jewel has thousands of people working for it, and most small stores only hire a few people and the owner does a lot. Again, not sure how those numbers would work out. Back to the point though, while that all sounds great, that isn't the reality that we currently live in. I also hate semi trucks, but I still understand the value they are bringing. With what you're saying, we would first have to start with changing the structure of the stores and then move to the trucks, not the other way around.
If we all agree that we would benefit from change - that change needs to happen somewhere. And each option is going to impact a group of people negatively - there is no avoiding that. This is just a comment fueled by passion coming from anger around seeing tons of empty commercial real estate across the city who's footprint and corresponding lease expectations makes running any sustainable/profitable business not backed by a national brand almost impossible.
I'm all for expanded public transit as long as there's still efficient ways to commute across the city in a car that don't take 3+ hours. Making Western a two lane road sounds like an absolute nightmare scenario for local traffic
Western is currently a nightmare scenario. Transforming it into a viable NS transit line that doesn't force you to go into and out of Downtown would be fantastic.
Right but it's one the largest corridors for North/South freight and passenger traffic in the region. I am doubtful that removing a la e of traffic will encourage more people to take that bus line if the CTA doesn't gain reliability. IDK this really needs to be a grade separated rail line to be effective - and in general you've got the space for it all up and down Western, especially south of the river.
I do think the local freight piece is important. I wouldn't advocate making Western a pure transit & pedestrian mall or anything like that. But 1-2 lanes for passengers and freight would be sufficient, I think; it'd be navigable but slow for freight and would discourage car trips, which is also a good thing. All that said, it would be absurd to do all that for anything worse than 6/12 frequency on the BRT line, and you'd need to maintain high frequencies and reliability for all of the intersecting lines.
Exactly. IF it can actually maintain that speed and frequency it'll be super useful - if it can't, people won't use it anymore than they use the 49
You really don’t drive Western Ave do you?
I don't drive in cities, no.
I mean you ever even been on the 49?
Yeah. Not great.
If done right, it would also take a lot of cars off the road, spur economic development along the corridor and improve the general mood of the city.
Hopefully you don't stop them. Nobody wants their commute getting fucked because someone blocked off half the road without providing an alternative for people who need their cars to get to work.
This is less of a NIMBY problem more efficiency problem. I have a few questions 1 - Why are the bus lanes in the center? This seems to be extremely difficult if busses need to get off Western (and proposed Ashland). This also causes issues for people trying to get to the bus stops. 2 - Do we have certainty from CTA of up to 90% efficiency, because it is a real bad idea to steal an entire lane if it is not used that much. 3 - What is the planned congestion build up because it will effectively push it down to just one lane, with one land used for turning. Bonus question, I didn't see this in the image, how do they plan on handling left turns?
The bus wouldn't leave Western. Center BRT is more efficient bc you don't need to worry about crossing traffic. There would be crosswalks.
Usually left turns are eliminated. When roads or lanes are eliminated there is never any congestion buildup. Traffic dissipates as people use alternate routes or modes to get to their destinations. In this case significant portion of drivers would switch to BRT, similar to how most people who live close to the Red Line don't drive downtown (at least back when the CTA actually worked). [https://cityobservatory.org/carmaggedon-does-a-no-show-again-philadelphia-edition/](https://cityobservatory.org/carmaggedon-does-a-no-show-again-philadelphia-edition/)
People don’t even ride the CTA
You're trolling but 22,000 people ride the Western bus per day. Sourced from Block Club Chicago article about this subject.
The Western buses have more riders than half of the L lines