There seems to be 2 prevailing viewpoints in Chicagoland (with large areas of gray in between, but to simplify I'll discuss 2 extremes):

1. The "Have it your way" city, as supported by suburbanites, the Tribune, and..well..most people. In this model, the city caters to the people who have chosen to live in auto-oriented communities, and provides the cheapest, most user-friendly way to transition them from car to foot while giving them access to the city's amenities and resources. All the while, the city has to foot the bill in some way, shape, or form. This includes not increasing the cost of parking, providing free trolleys, and doing maintenance work on all of the roads and bridges suburbanites use as they drive through the city but don't pay the tax to support. The assumption is, "I'm working and shopping downtown, hence I am contributing taxes anyhow", often also with the belief that any attempt on the part of the city to raise rates at their expense is a result of cronyism, and such monies will be horribly misspent.

2. The "Let suburbanites fend for themselves" model. The city, faced with the exorbitant cost of running services (and paying union pensions), and with the burden of maintaining infrastructure, feels that it has reached a point where it has enough critical mass of goods/resources to no longer require subsidization of its suburban customer base. It assumes that it has enough underutilized transportation infrastructure in place that people will either a) forego conveniences that were previously taken for granted (ie driving & parking), perhaps even eventually forget about them, yet still recognize the value of the city enough to make efforts to access it by these alternative routes; or b) be willing to pay extra for these conveniences. This is a less "safe", riskier model, but can work in a city that has a bright future and for which national models of urban development are expected to trend in its favor.

Okay, I had a bit of free time this afternoon so I thought I'd throw those two out. I think most American metros fall under #1, with the exception of New York and perhaps San Francisco, with Chicago somewhere in between #1 and #2 (and moving towards #2, apparently). Which group do you belong to?

I certainly agree with these sentiments, but the funding situation that the CTA is currently in isn't going to activate this concept. Aren't federal funds for the CTA contingent on ridership statistics (if I am incorrect here please provide the correct information; the knowledge of many of you goes beyond the extent of the research I have done on this topic)? Something needs to be done to tip the scales in favor of transit ridership, otherwise the cyclic regression of transit usage that continues with many groups of citizens (in my observance, anyway, so this is certainly an anecdotal conclusion) is going to continue, further weakening the CTA's chances for improved relevance and funds, and weakening the chances for improvements to speediness, comfort, etc. Parking for cars will continue to be visibly and perceptively available to many citizens, and many people will find that cars in Chicago are very accommodated. Therefore, parking will continue to be catered to, and the cycle will repeat and worsen the already dire situation.

Furthermore, the cost of parking is one of the automobile's greatest economic externalities, and the raised cost to park in the city hardly compensates for the costs incurred to everyone by the development of parking space, especially those who don't own vehicles. I happen to be one of those who doesn't own a vehicle, and despite the fact that I understand the economic benefit of having parking available and how much of a beneficiary I am of that, it is still a tyranny of the majority to me in many ways. Punishing people for parking downtown? Hardly; I'd say that drivers will be closer to paying their fair share of the costs.

It's not quite the same thing, but cars whose owners reside within the London congestion fee area are exempt from the rules that apply to everybody else. It certainly doesn't seem very difficult to implement that kind of thing for the proposed fee increase.

Previous experience suggests that when it comes to commuting, people respond more readily to negative incentives (increased costs for the status quo arrangement) than to positive incentives (less costly alternatives). Sometimes negative incentives are used to force people into considering new alternatives. Take Hyde Park, where U of C has for some time been trying to dissuade people from driving to work through a mix of positive and negative incentives: while it has been increasing employment in the central campus area, it has generally reduced parking and replaced it with free shuttles to lots south of the midway, free Hyde Park circulator buses, etc. I wonder if service improvements to the Loop would similarly require some negative changes to encourage people to look around at the alternatives.

No, all federal funding for operations were eliminated several years ago.

Umm, check your math. It's $9,000 a year. For a company taking 100,000 sq ft, (there are probably only 40 such companies in downtown Chicago and they certainly don't pay $30/foot), that's a pretty minor budget item. Companies that big do indeed make their locational decisions based on carefully calculated criteria, but things like availability of contiguous or particularly configured space is generally more important than a small difference in rent.

But consider the managing partner of a 30- or 50-person firm who's already on the fence about downtown vs. a suburban office park. For him, a punitive fee that comes directly out of his pocket may well change his behavior. The way he chooses to avoid the pain of downtown parking may not be the way we want.

^ Mr. D, the problem I have with your logic is that it assumes that the cost of parking is so much of a problem that it will drive people & business away from downtown. You seem to make it sound as if this new tax will take people to some breaking point, arbitrarily set by you, that will essentially be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

The fact of the matter is, downtown Chicago has already been a far, far, far, far, far more expensive place to park (to the 10th power) than anyplace in suburbia--so if businesses were going to turn heel and run they should have done so long ago. I can see from your posts that the cost of parking downtown disturbs you, but whan can be said? I know this sounds cliche, but it's a city, after all. There are plenty of other forms of transportation available, and as I mentioned in my post above, the majority of downtown office workers have just one commute to make.

The more I think about it, I can't think of a single better source to draw funding for transit from than the people who forego transit and choose to drive (and no, I'm not on a witch-hunt as you implied in a previous post, I'm just trying to make a point that seems logical to me). On the other hand, why increase the tax on downtown property owners when, if anything, the city should reward them for wisely investing in the urban center?

Yeah, calculation error on my part Mr.D, I missed the point in .3%, thought you said 3%.

This is absurd. Mr Downtown predicates his entire argument on the difficulty of commuting to the Loop by rail. But there's a Metra stop in nearly every suburb! Am I missing something? What's stopping people from parking at the nearest suburban train station and "really flying" to their office downtown?

And frankly I'm not even sure what to make of this:

"Dangerous neighborhoods"? In the Loop? (And presumably you'd still have to leave your car at some point?)

"Odd hours"? The train schedule is pretty accommodating.

"Carrying packages and purchases"? Wait... seriously?

urban, I think you nailed it. This is something I've been saying for a while. Chicago has clearly flipped the switch in its mindset about the type of city it is. It no longer views itself like a normal American city, where particular care needs to be taken to keep the core healthy. Rather, it thinks of itself more like New York, London, or Paris, where people will pay any price, bear any burden for the privilege of visiting, working, or living in central Chicago. Time will tell if this works out or not. The real question is how elastic the demand for being in Chicago is.

^ My only concern is with this "flipping of the switch" from a #1 type of city to a #2 type of city. It really should be less of a "flipping", which appears to be what Chicago is doing, and more of a gradual transition. People are less likely to complain and protest if the changes come incrementally, and a lousy economy is a horrible time to suddenly increase the cost of everything.

For example, just a few weeks after news that parking meter rates are going up, news comes out that Daley is pushing for higher parking rates on top of that, just as everybody is losing their job or taking a pay cut. Not to mention that only a few weeks ago the city also announced that it will completely cease running its highly popular free trolley service.

It would have been better to pursue the extra parking tax perhaps another year or two from now, and to continue the trolley service at a surcharge of $1 per person (kids ride free, etc) for a little bit longer. Ultimately I think the city should end this trolley service because it takes business away from established venues (the taxicab industry, CTA, car service, businesses in the loop that would benefit from tourists simply walking by them on the way to their destination, etc), but I don't think suddenly stopping a highly popular service is the way to go about it.

^ All due respect, Honte, the impression I have gotten reading your prior posts is that you mostly drive to get around the city (please correct me if I'm wrong), so of course a higher parking tax would negatively affect you. But as our most ardent preservationist, surely you recognize that it is the accommodation of the automobile that has led to perhaps the greatest destruction of historic buildings in most American cities, Chicago included--and it continues to this day.

Even Blair Kamin is an ardent preservationist, but I wonder if he uses transit? I imagine the downtown garage/lot he parks in must have replaced a century-old treasure.

Change starts from the bottom up.

Yes, I do drive more often than I ride public transit, and I am one of the people who would fit into some of Mr. D's categories about driving vs. transit. I can tell you, due to the nature of my work, certain physical ailments, and the way transit is set up in this city, it is absolutely unworkable for me. You will also note that the South Side is hardly set up any longer to support transit-oriented living. Last, I'm not ashamed to say that I attempt to make use of every neighborhood in the city, and the majority of the places I love or have found in Chicago are simply not readily accessible via transit, particularly if you try to visit more than one destination in a day.

I have tried to use mass transit as a primary form of transportation, and the equation simply never works. Even if only one of the above points applied to me, it just wouldn't be feasible.

I'm also in the income bracket where I would never be able to pay for parking on a regular basis downtown. In fact, even today I never pay for parking unless I'm carpooling with four people or more. But I can certainly see how the prices are near the tipping point and there will be spill-over - some of this will spill into transit, which would be good, and some of this will spill into people who simply give up on the city.

The other thing I can tell you, I interface with contractors and other working class types most every day, and I meet people at least once per week who talk about leaving Chicago due to the high prices of daily living. I just met another one yesterday. You might laugh this off, telling me that they are suburban-minded or not fit for city life, but these are real issues that have real impact. It's far too important, complex, and dynamic to just make some demands based on theoretical ideals and ignore the true dynamics of the situation. I'll grant that these are usually not the people who are paying to park downtown, but some of the downtown people surely feel similarly.

The preservation issue is a loaded question, and it's more complex than you make it. But I try to deal with the situation at hand, and the fact at this point in time is that much damage has been done - but aside from strip-malls, I don't see a lot of development happening that strictly caters to automobiles. Most of what's been going on are developments that have a parking component, but I believe most of these would have happened in either case.

^ I appreciate your argument, Honte, and I want to start off by saying that I was not intending to be smart-alec-ish at all in that post. My point was mostly a conceptual one, not a personal attack.

To the rest of your argument, let me hit you with this:

You talk about people who can't afford to live in the city and are considering leaving. It's unfortunate that such a thing is happening, but that clearly is due to a complicated range of factors besides Daley's proposed rush hour parking tax. So I'll leave it at that.

Regarding your point about personally travelling to all neighborhoods of the city, that's a separate issue. It has to be emphasized that this is an increased tax on parking within a certain part of downtown during certain hours of the day Monday through Friday. This should not affect Hyde Park, Kenwood, the west side, Lincoln Park, Uptown, yada yada yada. There will be no increase in the cost of parking in these neighborhoods at any time from this particular proposal.

The areas that are affected by this tax, ie Chicago's loop and near north side, are some of the most well-served by transit in the North American continent. We all know this--a huge plethora of trains and buses extending perhaps 80 miles out from the core serve this small area. I can see almost NO reason, whether one is a suburbanite or whether he or she lives in the city, one cannot get to Chicago's downtown during rush hour fairly easily without a car. Even if one is poor but still works downtown, how should this affect them? In fact, if this plan is implemented in earnest and such monies indeed are used to fund the CTA, regular transit riders should actually see an improvement in their service.

The only exception is the point Mr. D made--people who work at several sites per day. They either have to suck it up or some provisions perhaps can be made for them (ie exemptions, although I'm not sure how this can be implemented).

I'd like to close by saying this: I believe that increasing the cost of parking in the core will indirectly preserve existing real estate (to this day, NW University is still clearing historic buildings for parking--so it's not a 1970's problem), increase the value of land, and increase the pressure for development of housing/park-n-ride facilities near transit stops outside of the core. Finally, lets observe this--if you look at the most successful, well-preserved cities of the modern western world, pretty much all of them have an economic arrangement that somehow discourages driving. I'd like to see a major western city in which excellent historic preservation and cheap parking go hand-in-hand.

^ Yeah, I was mixing the issues a bit by first responding to why I drive at all (which obviously is not something I am proud of), and then trying to relate it back a bit to what you're discussing on the downtown parking. Sorry if that was a touch confusing.

The general point I'm trying to make is that all of these headaches, taxes, etc, make life more complicated for everyone. I see a lot of increasing headache but not a lot of attempts to make life better, so it seems... which is a shallow argument in some regard, disregarding increasing costs of running the city and what-have-you, I'll admit. But that's how most people see it.

My job does require quite often that I go downtown and into the surrounding city on the same day. It's a pain in the butt, driving and then parking, taking the el downtown, etc, then having to go back to your car only to sit in traffic - but it's a complexity I'll accept as one of the myriad difficulties of living in a great city. The problem is, most people I know would never put that much effort into it and would very grudgingly just put up, and that is the root of the problem. Are these people lazy, uncreative, even greedy? Probably yes. But unfortunately we need them to keep the city healthy; there are just too many to ignore. It makes me sad to run into people all the time who are literally dreaming of being somewhere else.

____

On the preservation issue, I think you're mixing the two a touch too much. The preservation of older, dense areas of older cities obviously leads to decreased parking and higher costs because they were not built to include parking and preservation generally results in increased values and land costs, driving up development pressure on vacant land etc. It's a pretty simple equation. But would preservation of many communities in western states or newer communities have the same effect? Probably not.

Would increasing the cost of parking preserve anything in downtown Chicago? I highly, highly doubt that. It could theoretically reduce the number of stories of buildings being built and reduce the parking podium effect, but I don't think it's going to stop any developer from eventually replacing his building. As I said, I haven't seen much of anything in the core area recently torn down solely for parking. I can think of maybe three or four examples over the last several years, and I think those buildings would, unfortunately, have come down for some other reason if not for parking.

Wikipedia has a neat little article about congestion pricing here, which I found interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing

A great thing for the city to do would be to completely exempt the parking tax for all Hybrid vehicles and motorcycles/scooters

double post :(

Yes, yes, and yes. I won't start with the problems of CTA, since I ride it infrequently and I have an outsiders' perspective at best (I am from the Chicago suburbs but go to school in New Orleans).

However, I will say that Metra isn't the model of convenience you make it out to be. The system of rail lines is adequate, but capacity is really starting to be strained on certain lines.

The nature of commuter rail places a cap on the total number of riders -
1) since it serves suburban locations, riders usually have to drive to the station and park there
2) since conductors and boarding/exiting passengers need to move through the aisles, riders need to be in a seat.

Because of limited quantity of parking spaces at the stations and seats on the train, this basically makes Metra into a kind of lottery. Whoever is able to get to the station early in the morning and happens to live in a far-flung suburb can use Metra (if you live closer in, the train is already full when it gets to you) . If, for whatever reason, you can't get to the station early, and/or you live in a closer suburb, you're out of a parking space or a seat. Staying in your car and driving downtown, then, offers a appealing alternative. Many people have agreed to pay $25 for parking to avoid the stress of waiting in a Metra parking lot for a space to open up, or standing in an aisle all the way downtown. If you raise that price of parking, then these people are liable to simply give up on downtown and find a job somewhere in the suburbs.

The "dangerous neighborhoods" point is valid, although it applies more to city dwellers using the CTA. Getting in your car, safely stored in your alley garage, and driving downtown seems a lot safer than walking a distance through this dangerous area to a train or bus stop and waiting for that train/bus to come, then dealing with the dangers that present themselves once you're on the train or bus. Many people who live in dangerous neighborhoods can't afford to park downtown and so they will take CTA anyway, but if any of them could afford this price, then they would drive.

Again, the Metra schedule at off-peak times is inconvenient and the hassles of parking at off-peak times are terrible.

As for packages and purchases - have you ever returned on Metra from a shopping trip with lots of bags and boxes? You set the parcels down on the seat beside you, but as the train fills up, the conductor orders you to carry all that stuff in your lap to make way for another passenger to sit next to you. Or even worse, on CTA, where somebody could easily swipe one of your bags while you were looking the other way? Throwing the stuff in your trunk and driving starts to look appealing.

I realize that I sound like a typical suburbanite here, but think about this rationally. When transit offers so many drawbacks and very few advantages besides price, why would I choose transit? (In fact, transit isn't even cost-effective for people traveling in groups.) The only reason I would choose it is either out of a sense of environmental responsibility or out of sheer habit. Refusing to add capacity to the transit system while making driving more expensive only makes downtown itself less attractive, and increases the attractiveness of places where driving is unfettered, i.e. the suburbs.

4 track service is now in effect on the brown line. Belmont opened both SB lines this weekend. :o

100,000 different reasons for 100,000 different people. There is no parking currently available at most Metra stations, especially after 8 am. Waiting outside or walking in bad weather is not easy for some people. The walk home from the train station or bus stop is dangerous in some neighborhoods and suburbs. Some people work odd hours, or fear having to go pick up a sick child during the day when there's very limited (or no) Metra service. For many people, driving offers a significant time savings that they value highly. Parents often have to pick up children or run errands or buy groceries on the way to or from the office. People go from work to night classes or second jobs.

In a free, affluent society, it's not generally a successful approach to tell grownups that they're evil for making choices that are rational to them. When your objective is to attract people to a particular place, loudly announcing that they will be punished for coming in a certain way or at certain times of day is a very curious market strategy.

While I agree that many people take cars out of necessity, there are a lot of problems caused by having too many cars downtown.

The problem the city's trying to address is congestion, which is partially caused by too many people trying to get down, so I don't think that they really need to attract people to the loop. The strategy is to take the people who are already coming downtown, and to try and convince them to cause less stress on the system. There is enough demand where even if some of those people choose not to come downtown, it won't have much impact, and they can be replaced by people who want to come downtown but don't because of the current situation.

Peak period pricing/surcharges have nothing to do with social engineering and everything to do with attempting to price peak period travel at marginal cost, rather than at the lower average cost - without variable pricing in transportation, congestion exists because each marginal person filling up the roadway is paying only the average cost in terms of time and money, rather than the marginal cost. To put it very simply, a congestion surcharge seeks to rectify this by pricing at an average marginal cost rather than an average total cost.

In short, there's nothing wrong with 100,000 people driving for 100,000 different reasons - but they should be prepared to pay the full cost of their decision.

Before any taxes/charges are made to incoming drivers, the city really ought to address the lamest venture to date. The Traffic Management Authority. The idea is great - put traffic people out on the streets to manage (in real time) the ebb and flow of daily traffice patterns, rather than depend on the street lights. The reality is that they gave these jobs to any moron who signed up and now we have people in bright green/yellow coats, standing on the sidewalk, talking on their cell phones, doing just about every other thing possible than their JOB!

I walk from the Red Line every day to Wells street and have seen maybe one of these people doing their job, once. It should piss everyone off that our taxes go to pay for these things. So rather than charge people extra to drive, why don't we look at the system in place now and make a few changes so that it works the way it was intended.

really? I work in downtown and never see that. Maybe they are on break - they allowed that?

Just to clarify, "never see" what exactly? My experience is that they are standing on the side of the intersection, maybe they are using the hand wand/light thing, but mostly they are not really doing much to help the situation. I feel like they should be out in the middle of the intersection, using their whistles, directing traffic and taking charge of the intersection. Something more similar to the way Cops handle it.

ummm the part I highlighted lol

I see an incredible amount of incompetence in the TMA workers... and laziness. In their defense, they are usually in the middle of the intersection, but that's only half the battle.

Most of the time, I stop at the light or stop sign anyway, just because they are motioning so carelessly, it's almost impossible to know what they're directing you to do. Other times, they are joking with one another, or so completely disorganized that you get mixed signals. Then when you are confused about whom to obey, they just yell at you and make themselves feel powerful. It's pretty bad.

Wow, come with me down Michigan Ave every morning; they are insane about doing their jobs. It makes sense, but it's still confusing sometimes.

It does have a drawback. You come up to an intersection, your crosswalk signal is 'Go' and just about the time you get around the thick crowd of slow walking out of towners and get ready to cross, you get a bloody earful from Susie yellow jacket because she decided to clear the turning lane of traffic.

On paper, it sounds great. Rely on human judgment to handle the situation, but it's like screaming 'Good dog' to a puppy while you simultaneously beat his ass with a rolled up Trib.

I'm not complaining really. It just took some time to catch on to watch Susie first before the crosswalk guy.

^ if you ever hit an out of towner crossing the cross walk, at least you can blame the TMA and the inability to manage traffic. lol

I agree: they tend to cause more confusion than they prevent. They can be of great use when they are working *with* the signals (telling people to get back on the curb when they don't have the walk signal, instructing cars trying to turn when and where to go, etc.). But often (as honte already said) they are a mess.

One thought I had is that they could control the lights at their intersection. Let's say they had a device that could shorten or lengthen a light in a given direction and the corresponding walk signal. Not total control, mind you, but enough so that if, say, a lot of cars were backed up trying to turn, they could lengthen the light and shorten the walk signal. Something tells me that operating such a device would be a nightmare in practice, though. Especially with the quality of employees the TMA seems to hire...

Taft

Taft, great idea. The lengthening of turning lane lights would really help. But as you said I think the TMA employees need to master the whistle and lighted wand before they tackle remote controls... :D :D

They do this sometimes (control the signals manually). Whenever I've encountered it, it made traffic much, much worse.

Rather than TMA staff, I'd rather the city spend some of the infrastructure dough to:
1) put in left turn signals at many of the incredible multitude of intersections where there are currently none, and thus approximately 1-2 cars can turn left in each light cycle,
2) install loops in the roadway to perform the task you suggest (tweaking signal timing in real time depending on traffic volume).

Chicago's dearth of both of these is fairly striking when compared to most other cities' traffic control systems. They make a huge difference - when Houston's intelligent traffic systems broke down after the hurricane, much of the city was in gridlock during peak times, whereas otherwise traffic generally flows smoothly. (Not that I wish Chicago to be Houston, I'm just using the anecdote to point out that intelligent signalization should receive more attention in this town, particularly out in the neighborhoods).

I have seen the TMA people completely fail, but they are usually helping IMO especially on Michigan during rush hour. The biggest problem is the stupid tourists walking like a heard of buffalo and paying no attention whatsoever to the walk signals. When they do that and block traffic a TMA person usually quickly responds and makes them stop.

Also, the other thing that makes them very handy is when vehicles (especially busses) break down they come and wave all the busses that would normally just sit there until they realized the other bus is broken around the obstructing vehicle...

Agreed on all counts. They do control the signals quite often around Sox Park and it usually seems pointless.

Why is there not a greater push toward improving the technological aspects of the road system? Are the things you mentioned being discussed? Technology seems important when it generates revenue (red light cameras and fancy parking meter machines) but otherwise it must have no purpose.

^ To this part of your post I thought I'd just remind you that we're talking about peak period congestion pricing (ie rush hour), thus off peak hours shouldn't be affected

^ Nonsense. Give me a break with the sick child. And people working odd hours don't commute at rush hour so there goes that argument. And I have an idea--find a DIFFERENT time to buy groceries than on your way to and from work.

People can make it work, our lifestyles aren't set in stone. It's time to get over ourselves and stop forcing our rigid routines onto overly burdened transportation infrastructure. Given time, the market may ultimately correct some of these problems (more parking built around Metra stations, supermarkets built near the stations to accommodate the growing number of riders driving home from them, etc)

That makes a lot of sense to me. Here's the bit that gets me, though. I walk to work. Michigan Ave 'can be' pure madness. The trip between Trib Tower and Oak 'can be' torture. Part of that is because you have a quarter billion people on the street, which is actually a lot of fun really, but the periodic stupid bits are aggrevating when 8 people in cars take precedent over 40 people in really ugly snow boots.

Side note, though, when talking about people on Michigan there appear to be three distinct categories: workers like me - slightly aggresive/focued and all of that, tourists ... meandering/clueless/having a ball, and then Michigan Avenue ladies ... who are brilliant. Chanel and stilettos in 8 inches of snow and the way they move through a crowd is poetry. I love them.

It's not something I made up. It's one of the top reasons people give for why they don't take public transit. For a mom with a couple of kids, this might well happen five or six times a year. I'm curious what answer you have for the woman from Lockport who gets a call from the school nurse at 9 am. The next outbound train arrives Lockport at 5:43 pm. With any luck, she could be at the school by 6 pm.

People working odd hours can't ride Metra.

You keep talking about some sort of rush-hour congestion pricing. That's not what the mayor is proposing. In fact, I'm at a loss as to how such a thing could be implemented in Chicago. He's proposing an indiscriminate punishment of people who park downtown.

From what I understand, this fee would only be levied on people who park their cars downtown during the morning rush. Almost all garages now have electronic ticketing systems, which record entry time. If the entry time falls within the morning peak period (say, 6-9:30) then the fee will be added to the price the driver pays as they exit.

Parking during evening rush hour is a different ballgame, since obviously one would be driving in the countervailing direction and parking in a garage that is emptying out. One would assume these people are either downtown for leisure purposes, or they are working at night. However, these drivers still add to congestion, since reverse-commuters returning to the city cause traffic congestion going inbound as well.

My sense is that the evening congestion fee would be much less than the morning fee, considering
a) transit is optimized for getting people OUT of downtown in the evening, making it a poor alternative, and
b) punishing leisure visitors to downtown seems to run counter to the ever-increasing appeal of downtown as an entertainment destination.

Incentive plans like this that aim to alter behavior always have side effects. It's impossible to predict the side effects of this one, but this might foster the creation of private park'n'ride lots near CTA stations close to downtown, on the less-crowded lines. For example, near the Western-Forest Park station on the Blue Line, or the Halsted station on the Orange Line. The cost of parking in these neighborhoods in a lot plus CTA fare plus time spent on the train is bound to be less than the congestion fee which, knowing the boneheaded planners at City Hall, will be steep. (Actually, why haven't private park'n'ride lots sprouted up already?)

By the way, nice choice of the Heritage Corridor, the lightest-used of all 11 Metra lines with a whopping 6 trains per day, to illustrate your point. ANY other Metra line would have a more robust schedule that could accommodate your parent-of-sick-child scenario. Of course, it would be great if Mom could work in a suburban office park just 20 minutes away from her child's school, right? Working downtown has its drawbacks for suburbanites, including a long trip home no matter what time of day or mode of transportation is chosen.

So what, exactly, is the problem with standing, especially if the people standing "all the way downtown" are the ones closest to downtown (and thus with the shortest commute) as you suggest? Is this really that uncommon an experience for commuters in other cities with some kind of rail service? Or will you and Mr Downtown argue that a majority of the "automotively inclined" suffer from health problems that prevent them from being on their feet for twenty minutes? (And were this the case might it not be from spending so much time on their asses, anyway?)

As far as the parking goes, I'm pretty skeptical of the claim that would-be Metra users are discouraged by a dearth of parking around their suburban train stations. I know firsthand this couldn't be further from the truth along the Union Pacific North Line, for example.

Especially in this economy, I doubt the "inconveniences" of standing or brushing shoulders with the hoi polloi are enough to deter someone from sticking with their downtown job. God knows if triple-figure salaried North Shore businessmen are able to do it the rest of us shouldn't have a hard time, either.

The "dangerous neighborhoods" argument is not valid and I'm so shocked to see any kind of defense of this antiquated and borderline racist superstition that I almost think merely acknowledging it lends it more credence than its due. But suffice it to say, you're more likely to encounter danger on the road than danger on the sidewalk, unless of course the danger is careening from the road onto the sidewalk.

You know, the shopping thing reminds me of my mom's situation. She currently drives an SUV despite repeated pleas from me and my brother to trade it in for a more compact, fuel efficient vehicle. Her constant refrain is that she needs the space for the one or two times a year when the items she's transporting are so large or numerous they wouldn't fit in a trunk. It seems like an awfully flimsy defense of continuing to drive something so wasteful and costly, especially when alternatives (renting a van, asking a friend for help, etc.) abound. The shopping thing is analogous. And I would venture to guess the kind of people who are making these large trips so frequently as to render the alternatives too inconvenient probably wouldn't even bat an eye at a five or six or ten dollar increase in parking.

This might be true if it weren't for the fact that the "grownups" of which you speak are making their choices at the figurative and literal expense of the non-driving population. How many hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into road construction and maintenance already, to say nothing of the spill-over costs of air pollution, environmental damage and emergency care for a system that results in over forty thousand deaths a year?

Exactly. :tup: You know, these defenses of vehicular transportation are sounding increasingly convoluted and flat-out anti- mass transit rather than anti- new rate hike plan. New York has the most developed rail system in the country (and probably the lowest rate of car ownership) and its residents seem to be doing just fine.

And, TUP, you hit the nail on the head about lifestyle change. A huge element of our society has been lulled into a sense of entitlement. For the majority of Chicago drivers, viable alternatives exist. It's just a matter of change, which is always hard. But it's worth remembering that as rosy a perception some people have about the car's place in downtown Chicago, it does not come without its own set of costs: great personal expense, gridlock, accidents, pollution and tons and tons and tons of tax dollars to keep the system afloat.

You just pointed out the best reason why people want to drive, NYC has the best rail system, the CTA and Metra suck in comparison. Having lived there, you can get anywhere in the city in relatively short time span and at all hours of the day, but with the CTA and Metra, who knows...

NYC has express trains, where are the CTA's (purple line excluded, because it really the brown line after Belmont)? The Bus system in the town is horrible.

I have read all the posts, from everyone who is on both sides of this issue and the truth is that people have the right to drive if they want to. Until the city fixes the problems that it has, it shouldn't look to create a new system of taxing its people, that will in all reality end up being just as broken as what we have now.

Fix what you have Mayor Daley, and if or when that doesn't work, then look for alternatives.

^ I'm not saying you made it up. But to suggest that a major city metro with horrendous congestion issues leading to loss of productivity should not implement solutions to its problems because of children getting sick a few days per year is simply preposterous

^ Exactly. So they should drive, since the peak pricing won't be in effect at that time.

^ I don't understand your point here. The Mayor is proposing empowering the city's Revenue Director to adjust the parking tax without having to go through the City Council, and all discussion we have heard so far is that such fees will be maximized during peak rush periods and titrated towards a 10-15% vacancy rate in downtown garages. Sounds like rush-hour pricing to me..

I'd also like to remind you that absolutely none of this came out of the blue. Ever since the BRT plan was first announced several months ago, it was made known that the program was going to go hand-in-hand with increased peak hour parking fees.

^ The CTA and Metra do a fairly decent job of getting people to and from downtown Chicago every day. Sorry, but you're wrong.

^ Exactly. And people who wish to exercise that "right" better pay for it. Because in heavily congested areas, the "right" to drive has become a privilege. No amount of wishing on a star is going to undo congestion; either accept the practical solution or move to a smaller city. On top of that, I would argue that making people pay a little extra may actually improve the driving experience.

^ You know, I really love your type. You bitch and moan about transit, and about Daley, and cry about your Jesus-decreed "right" to drive for free while transit is underfunded by your State; yet when practical opportunities arise to create funding for the system, you start blaming the "cronies". Please. If you really care about transit funding then write your legislator or the Governor. The money for transit has to come from somewhere, and here's a hint--it's not from your ass.

Once again, in the current environment in which State and Federal money (at the behest of our elected officials) underfund transit year after year, I can think of no better suitable source to fund transit than the drivers themselves. That's right--decade after decade drivers have hidden behind their elected officials, getting them to do the dirty work to somehow subsidize their highways at the expense of trains. But now Daley is getting rid of the middle man--he's reaching directly into your pockets to get that money. It's about friggin time..

If they need that many pathetic excuses to drive downtown, then they should be ‘punished.’ I’m sort of amazed that you would even bring up the “it’s not easy to walk in bad weather” argument when those of us that do ride buses see geriatrics on there every day. Driving and parking downtown should come a higher cost simply for the convenience factor. In fact, I’d prefer to see the gas tax and parking fees in place be capable of fully supporting the infrastructure that is in place for it (paving roads, building bridges, etc)

I ride the CTA red line every day. My experience is average at best. If you think both the CTA and Metra do fairly decent job, then YOU are wrong. Is your measurement for rating them simply whether or not they get the people from point A to point B? If so, sure they do a fair job.

I rarely drive into the loop durning the week, but when I decide to make the 7.5 mile trip, it usually takes me about 35 minutes. Conversely that same trip via the CTA takes an hour! Can you do that math? 7.5 miles in one hour, averages 7.5 miles an hour. I might be better off jogging on some days...

Again, I blame Daley because while I have 5, count them 5 freaking parks within two blocks of my house, I still have to deal with crappy public transportation. Sure part of the problem is from G-Rod (asshole), and his seniors ride for free crap, but Daley and his other pet projects to help make the city "nicer" to live in are a waste of money. That money is what should pay for updated CTA/Metra service.

Let me ask you how smart it is to update the Brown Line so that it can utilize 8 car trains now instead of 6 car trains. This isn't going to speed up the time it takes to get to the loop by more than 5 minutes. Instead, they should have started working on express lines or something else.

My point in all of this is that Daley and whoever else is running the show should fix what they have before forcing others to pay for their short falls.

topix.net

What route do you take? I live 5 miles from work, and it takes me 35 minutes on average, and that includes a bus trip and waiting at both stops.

And I live off the brown line. During rush hour, the brown line trains would become so congested that they had problems getting people on and off the train as people tried to pack more in. This slowed the line at every stop. For the most part, it is much better now with 8 car trains. If there was one project in the city that needed to be done, it was improving the brown line service. And don’t even bring up ridership. All riders at Belmont and Fullerton are counted towards red line ridership when the reality is it’s likely 60/40.

May I ask which neighborhood you live in? I ask because your experience strikes me as anything but typical. Granted, I've only lived off of the Blue line (near the North/Damen/Milwaukee stop) and Brown line (near the Wellington stop), but my experience has been anything but negative.

Currently, my commute takes me from the Diversey stop (Wellington is closed) to the Merchandise Mart stop on the brown line. I can count on one hand the number of times in the last year where my commute takes longer than 30 minutes, door-to-door (that includes 10 minutes of walking). Compare that to a much-less-reliable driving commute which, door-to-door takes me anywhere from 15 minutes to 40 minutes (an hour and a half in a snow storm...yikes!). If I do drive, the time of my commute matters much more, as do weather conditions. Sure, it is more comfortable, but the higher cost (about 10 bucks a day, if I get a monthly parking permit, 12-15 if I don't) and the variable travel time just aren't worth it to me.

The brown line rehabbing certainly wasn't perfect (train delays and packed trains during construction, value engineering at the stops, etc.), but the effects of having 8 trains on the brown line during rush hour are very noticeable. Trains are much easier to get on during rush hour and the entire commute seems to move much more smoothly. As a regular brown line rider, I see the improvements as very necessary and a very wise allocation of resources.

That said, I realize that not all commutes on the CTA are as convenient as my own. Buses can be much less reliable and a commute from a far-flung stop on any line to the heart of the loop *does* take a long time. Express trains might help that, but at what cost? And aren't the myriad of Metra lines already serving a similar purpose? Everyone likes to play Monday morning quarterback, but do you REALLY know the best places to use the CTA's dwindling cash?

Taft

I gather you've never lived in a rougher area... but whether or not you're on-board with this, I promise you that many people, perhaps even the majority of people, in these areas feel that the car is a safer means of transit when you factor in the total trip from door to door.

Now, if everyone were to eliminate their cars and walk along the street, that might be fine. If we take the Jane Jacobs fantasy even further, so that every porch has a grandma sitting on it reading a romance novel and a shotgun by her side, that would be even better.

As someone who also lives in the New York metropolitan area, I can testify firsthand that you are simply wrong about Metra when compared to the MTA. My experience on the Metro-North Railroad was no better than my experience on the Union Pacific North Line. It is true that cities/suburbs closer to New York (mine is not) are more frequently served during off-peak times, but, 1) though sometimes inconvenient, it's not difficult to structure that part of your day around 1-hour intervals as opposed to 30-minute ons and 2) we're talking about peak times, anyway.

And while driving may be a right, it is also an overly subsidized luxury shouldered, as I detailed above, by many people who choose to exercise their right to an alternative mode of transportation that gets pittances by comparison, and an artifact of collusion between unduly influential auto/real estate lobbies and defense officials who thought a decentralized population stood greater chance of surviving an A-bomb.

You gather wrong unless you consider New Haven a model of safety these days. (I was recently offered a hit on a crack pipe by a man "just chilling" outside my apartment after my friend gave him a cigarette.)

Given the economic demographics of "rougher" neighborhoods (because I know you're not talking about the Gold Coast, River North, Streeterville, the Loop, the South Loop, the West Loop, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Andersonville, Bucktown, Wicker Park, etc.), I'd venture to guess many of their residents can't afford to drive anyway. And this perception of safety afforded by a car ignores (as do you in your rebuttal) the very real dangers of driving. (I gather you've never been in an accident? ;))

Ah, yes, you've described Manhattan perfectly. :koko: