Aren't they talking about running 90 six lanes all the way to Rockford? After getting caught in fourth of july traffic that was bumper to bumper all the way from Chicago to Madison when going up to WI, I tend to think that is a necessity.

Also, I disagree, as someone who works along the I-90 corridor (and takes the train to work) 90 is about the most congested freeway in the city. It's almost constantly slow or completely jammed. It should be four lanes all the way past O'Hare if only to encourage development around O'Hare and connectivity to O'Hare. It makes no sense that 294 is eight lanes and 90 is six lanes... And you all know I rarely support road widening at all.

The 53 extension however is a load of shit. We don't need to encourage development any further out than it already goes. Widening a road will simply intensify use along the route in this case, but adding new freeways will only encourage people to move further out along the freeway.

:previous: My instinct is you are right about 53. Though I understand your point about 90 I'm not sure if there is a practical way to widen it to four lanes (one of which I would hope would just be turned into a HOT lane. Perhaps it could be done if the Blue Line was shifted over to go under Milwaukee/Higgins for the north end of the route as well perhaps it could be done which would then open up the extra lanes on 90. Good luck finding funding for that though.

This particular summer, the traffic was much worse due to the resurfacing project and the tiny lane width. Also, some Wisconsin-bound traffic probably switched to 90 in recent years because of the aggravation of the recent Tri-State project and WisDOT's 94 expansion. Once that finishes, traffic on 90 should lessen as drivers move back to the 294/94 route.

It makes sense when you consider the constrained nature of the Kennedy south of the Junction. The Edens and northern Kennedy (6 lanes southbound) both have to merge down to the five southbound lanes of the Kennedy.

I suppose you could widen the northern Kennedy if you turned the reversibles to always-inbound, but that creates a massive headache in the afternoon and evening as 100,000 downtown workers try to cram into five lanes outbound. I like the Urbanophile's solution... put in auxiliary lanes to ease the congestion caused by the frequent exit/entrance ramps.

It's all a huge problem because they never built the Crosstown Expressway... which would have segregated the downtown commuters from the regional and national traffic, and prevented desirable neighborhoods near downtown from having a huge 12-lane auto sewer shoved down their throats, placing the heavy traffic instead in a wide band of industrial areas along the Belt Railway.

Lake County is already suburbanized. Except for an pocket of cornfields between Grayslake and Libertyville, the area along the expressway route is already built-out. The goal of the 53 project is not to drive development into the hinterlands but to decongest existing surface roads that date back to the farm era by pulling regional traffic onto the new expressway. The northern segment of 53 is the most important missing link in the second Chicago ring road.

The real load of shit is the Illiana, which will quite literally run through cornfields all the way. If they can build it based purely on the tolls it generates, then by all means they should build it... But there's absolutely no reason Chicago drivers should pay a thin dime towards that road unless they're actually driving down it.

^ As a student who constantly uses 90 to get from Madison to the 59 exit or O'Hare for the bus I definitely think it should be expanded to eight lanes for the city until 294 or 59 or at least 6 lanes throughout. Even before the traffic from the construction from the past two years, it was still always crowded at most times of the day all the way to Madison. Even the past few summers on Sundays when all of the Dells vacationers make their way home it is packed until the Randall Rd or 59 exits. The only relief is Rockford where they have recently expanded it.

Also, is the portion between the Wisconsin border and the end of the tollway scheduled to be redone anytime soon? That is the worst part of the road now.

The direction without the reversible always seems to be worse-off. The traffic appears to be fairly well-balanced at this point between commuters and reverse-commuters.

If that's true - or even if it's close to true - just turning the reversibles into 2 extra lanes for each side would be a good choice - you'd end up with the same capacity as with the "express" lanes, but for both sides, all the time. You can actually end up with more capacity overall doing that because of the shoulders associated with the express lanes would become unnecessary.

Between Kimball and the Eden's split would be complicated by the Blue Line, but I would think there could be some creative solutions to deal with that - it might be as simple as shuffling it over 1 track-width. Might even be able to figure out how to add a passing track in that stretch if the CTA ever thought that would actually be useful (I'm not sure it would be, but I'm not a transit engineer).

The main part of the Kennedy is in pretty good shape right now, good enough it's probably not worth spending tons of money to reconfigure it. But the next time it needs a total rework - like the Dan Ryan got recently - they should seriously consider eliminating the express lanes and just having even capacity both directions.

Update on construction of the new Morgan St station on the Greenline from the CTA Tattler
http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...-taking-shape/

Below, some construction photos from the project.

http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...tshade-011.jpg

http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...tshade-029.jpg

http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...tshade-005.jpg

http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...tshade-008.jpg

http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...tshade-044.jpg

Photos James Connelly. Originally posted on CTA Tattler.

I don't think it will. The construction zone was actually one of the few places that traffic was flowing freely, probably because everyone slowed down and merged less.

I don't see this as an issue. Most of the reverse commuting traffic is found in the northern segment of 90/94 and is caused by people cramming to fit into 90. It's strange to inbound reverse commute and see the traffic get progressively lighter the closer you get to downtown. I think 90/94 is fine with it's reversables but gets fucked by the traffic that feeds into it off of 90.


The Crosstown would have been almost as big of a disaster as the completion of the LSD- 90/94 interchange spur would have been. All non-local traffic takes 294 or 355 as it is, the crosstown would have just draw more of those people further into the city and wiped out huge swaths of neighborhoods. The real solution would have been to not build any freeways at all and only build LSD style parkways in which case everyone would still live in the city and take our once massive transit network.



I know it's already suburban, that's not the issue, the issue is it getting even more developed. Encouraging more people to move out there and more people to drive will only bring traffic levels up in the long run whereas the status quo encourages people to build TOD in Arlington Heights and Palatine and take Metra in to the city.

Actually I disagree. The Illinana is actually hugely important to the re-integration of Gary, Southern Chicago, and NW Indiana into the Chicago area. There is huge industrial demand down there right now that could potentially start to revitalize NW Indiana and Southern Chicago but it's largely hampered by the fact that the entire area is bottle-necked. Having a third E-W road down there will open up not only new land to industrial development, but relieve the issues that discourage companies from moving back into the ChicaGary industrial wasteland.

All the industrial brokers in my office got silly-excited when they heard about the funding proposal as they've been trying to make redevelopment plays in that area since the 90's.

Ugh!!......just imagine what 12+ billion $ could do for the CTA if it was used / spent responsibly; I'd like to know traffic numbers versus ridership numbers for the highways in question versus CTA

Hard to know where to start with such silliness. For one thing, our rail transit network is the largest today that it's ever been—in part due to line extensions made possible by the expressways. Second, how would you have kept any industry in the city in the 60s-70s-80s with no truck access?

Not building the Crosstown was a huge mistake that unbalances the network all day every day. Look at the thousands of trucks with Wisconsin registrations creeping up the Ryan and the Kennedy and tell me again how they all bypass the city on the Tri-State. As for neighborhood destruction, the Crosstown would have taken 326 buildings in the 75th Street corridor. The north-south part was nearly all industrial land or to be built above the Belt Railway. The final SOM/Passonneau plan was a pretty innovative piece of urban design, featuring skillful integration of the highway with the city fabric.

How the hell does conversion of cornfields 30 miles south of Gary into new distribution centers help to revitalize South Chicago/Hammond/Gary/East Chicago? It's yet another way for the region to move off and leave the poor people behind. It's Merrillville Phase Three.

True but the effectiveness of having those lines in highway medians is of questionable utility vis-a-vis line that followed arterials or were under them.

Merrillville pahse three......:jester::jester: that's funny but what is phase 2...chesterton?

Emanuel to hold two budget hearings next week
 

Chicago Tribune | Clout Street - Aug. 25, 2011: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/p...,4185603.story


Mayor Rahm Emanuel will hold two public hearings on the budget next week.

By John Byrne

Clout Street

4:45 p.m. CDT, August 25, 2011

Mayor Rahm Emanuel will host two meetings next week where Chicagoans will get a chance to tell him how to close the city's $635.7 million deficit to balance next year's city budget.

The open houses will be held Monday at Kennedy-King College, 740 W. 63rd St., and Wednesday at Malcolm X College, 1900 W. Jackson Blvd. Each will begin at 6 p.m.

“My administration is committed to fostering a free and open discussion about our financial situation with the goal of working together to address our fiscal challenges for 2012 and beyond,” Emanuel said in a news release.

The neighborhood budget hearings are a page out of Mayor Richard Daley's political playbook. Daley annually sat for several public meetings at which people lined up at microphones to offer budget advice but also complained to him about more prosaic problems like potholes and rats in their alleys.

In addition, Emanuel has set up a Web site, chicagobudget.org, to accept budget suggestions.

The mayor is scheduled to present his first budget in October. The City Council must vote to approve a spending plan by the end of the year.

Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune

I definitely plan to attend the Wednesday meeting at Malcolm X - and give a
Statement on Waste in Public Transit Operating Costs, and Major Capital
Projects.

Isn't that sort of like saying "just imagine how many Grant Park Symphony concerts could be funded with the ticket sales from Lollapalooza?" The Lollapalooza attendees are probably not going to buy tickets next year if they go inside and there are no bands playing. It's kind of tricky to say "we didn't actually build the tollway you're paying to use; we sent that money to CTA."

St John–Crown Point

In Chicago, a Massive BRT Plan Could be the Best Bet for Inner City Mobility


Read More: http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2...city-mobility/

BRT Report PDF: http://www.metroplanning.org/uploads...10817_reva.pdf

189 Technical Report PDF: http://metroplanning.org/uploads/cms...cal_report.pdf




http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/w...hicago-BRT.jpg

^ I wish they'd actually do that! I feel like every two years in Chicago we get fed things like the Circle Line, Star Line, Grey Line, this BRT stuff - and then it all just goes away.

So how are left turns set up with BRT? Does the one lane of traffic get to cut over into the BRT lane for left turns where there isn't a station (when it expands out and you can incorporate a dedicated lane just for cars while keeping the lane for buses)?

It looks like they have a raised piece in the street to separate the BRT from the traffic lanes. Does that mean from a side street entring the BRT street you can only turn right if there isn't a signal?

I'm sure that and just about everything else is covered in that mountain of documents.

Granted; but I don't think I was trying to suggest that toll funding in this instance should be shuffled to CTA. I was just making an observation about societal priorities and political cowardice. That being said I am unclear if the toll increase fully funds that 12 billion $. I didn't think it did. If that is the case then the toll expansion is not fully user funded.

Does the map include stops? In particular I am looking at the ashalnd and the western and to a lesser extent the IP lines. Is there a stop at western & IP should be how about western & blue lines etc. How many stops are considered in the western and ashland line & I wish the ashland line went further north

No, the status quo encourages people to continue colonizing far-off places in Kane, Kendall, and Will Counties where they can continue the traditional suburban lifestyle, but without the high-quality train service of Lake County.

Explain to me how a road running east-west between Peotone and Manteno will revitalize the area between Chicago and Gary?

I'm not sure whether to be satisfied or disgusted. As I said, if industrial concerns want the road, they should pay its entire cost through the tolls charged on the road. I'm not opposed to industrial development but I don't want my dollars subsidizing it. Hell, let a private company build the road, charge the tolls, and operate it.

An Illiana built as part of a sensible second ring road for the Chicago region would get my support... something at the latitude of Crown Point/University Park would make sense, and it could tie into 355 with a future segment. But the current plans call for a much more southerly alignment that ties into the Prairie Parkway, which makes it just as bad as that ill-fated boondoggle. That's not to mention the third airport plans, which are equally bone-headed and rapacious.

It does. ISTHA receives no tax money of any kind. Everyone who drives on an Illinois tollway pays gas tax money that funds other roads and transit, sales tax on the gasoline that funds other social needs, plus a toll sufficient to pay for building, repairing, and expanding the tollway system.