[r18tdi]

Hissy fit from Reilly over Medinah Temple traffic study:

Statement from Alderman Reilly Regarding Medinah Temple Traffic Study

As reported in Chicago Tribune, earlier today, the City published a Traffic Study evaluating Bally’s temporary casino at Medinah Temple, located at 600 North Wabash. Click here to review the study. A statement from Alderman Reilly is below:

“Shocking: Bally’s hired a traffic consultant to tell the city that a Casino bound by Ontario, Wabash, Ohio and State won’t create any additional traffic burden on the neighborhood. In my 16 years as alderman, surprisingly, every single traffic study commissioned in support of a development project concludes traffic will not be negatively impacted.

I fundamentally disagree with the assumptions made by the traffic consultant - from vastly low-balling the number of vehicular trips to the casino and vastly overestimating the number of people who will be dumb enough to take the CTA or walk to this casino with cash in their pockets.

The consultant claims to have made its trip projections based on other casinos in similarly dense, heavily built urban environments like Chicago. I find that hard to believe, given there aren’t other casinos in cities as large as Chicago. So, I’d love to see the list of cities and corresponding traffic data to those.

The report essentially shrugs off rideshare and charter bus traffic, noting it’s hard to predict and difficult to regulate, because rideshare and charters don’t coordinate their trips with the City. They do not provide accurate projections for rideshare trips or charters, which is likely how half the visitors will get to the casino. Again, nobody would be stupid enough to ride the CTA or walk to a casino with cash in-hand.

The report is also vague regarding “recommended valet operations” - suggesting valet operations will improve traffic conditions. If you can show me one valet in the City of Chicago that has ever “improved traffic conditions” at a particular location, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

The report also makes no attempt to evaluate vendor deliveries. Evaluation of delivery and service loading docks are important to any new development or use – a standard section in every traffic study I’ve ever looked at. Even “ancillary” restaurant and bar areas need to be delivered product. The ingress and egress calculations are missing from this report.

As far as I’m concerned this study is seriously flawed, overly vague and clearly written for the sole purpose of concluding a casino will work at Medinah Temple. Having read literally hundreds of traffic studies over the years, I can tell you this one is thin gruel and lacks the credibility that an independent analysis would’ve provided.

Finally, true to form, the Administration has had this traffic study in their hands for the past two weeks and, for some reason, instructed Bally’s not to share it with my office until last night - just hours before they released the study to the media. So much for transparency and working collaboratively with the City Council. Way to bring in that light, Mayor.”