Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
Frankly, I think it’s irresponsible to allow highly dense development, particularly of office, in areas like this and Goose Island without at lease some plans for transit. Is everybody expected to drive here and park? Space for parking will eat up everything.
In addition to bus service, the city should at least be planning a transit extension. And no better time than now, when you can get the developers to help pay for it in return for zoning allowances.
|
Here's the transportation plan.
https://www.cityofchicago.org/conten...sportation.pdf
Most of it involves an "intelligent transportation system".
They have a vague notion for a transitway that crosses the Cherry ave bridge, but it is still just lines on a page with a lot of unresolved obstacles.
The biggest obstacle is how to pay for it.
They have set the bonus price on the north district at 11 bucks a square foot, 70% of which is for local improvements.
If everyone in all three areas bought as much FAR as they are allowed, it might total $250 million for local improvements, I you think it's gonna pay for 3 miles of light rail, you're nuts.
Even using Amazon's 50000 workers (which is very modest considering the whole redevelopment area is 600 acres) and assuming they have a very high transit use of 40%, they will need to add transit capacity for at least 40000 rides a day .
The entire brown line only does 65000.