Downtown Freeway Loops

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

Daycare / Preschool requires some level of research other than "what's closest to my house" in my opinion.

Unless the daycare in question is some truly awful place where the children are being verbally/physically abused or something, any old daycare is good enough in my opinion.

I guess we just got lucky that we had good affordable daycares within easy walking distance of both our old home and current home. And now that both my kids are in elementary school, we very intentionally bought our current home to be within one block of a good K-8 CPS school so that I would never have to chauffeur my children to school ever!!!

I'm not lying when I say that the extremely close proximity to our school was a huge reason why we ended up buying our "forever" home. I fucking HATE driving around the city and I've carefully crafted my family's lifestyle such that we don't have to do it a whole lot. It's not about badges of honor or anything stupid like that, it's about my own personal happiness.

Not driving makes me happy.

[homebucket]

Here's an interesting chart that shows how public transit commute times compared to cars, % of population using transit, and income difference. Out of the biggest mega metros, it looks like LA has the worst differential when it comes to transit to car commute times. Despite its reputation for freeway congestion, it's not surprising that commuting by car is the preferred method there. It'd be interesting to see what the updated results are after the Purple Line extension, Regional Connector, and Crenshaw Line are online.



https://smartasset.com/mortgage/best...transportation

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Unless the daycare in question is some truly awful place where the children are being verbally/physically abused or something, any old daycare is good enough in my opinion.

I guess we just got lucky that we had good affordable daycares within easy walking distance of both our old home and current home. And now that both my kids are in elementary school, we very intentionally bought our current home to be within one block of a good K-8 CPS school so that I would never have to chauffeur my children to school ever!!!

I'm not lying when I say that the extremely close proximity to our school was a huge reason why we ended up buying our "forever" home. I fucking HATE driving around the city and I've carefully crafted my family's lifestyle such that we don't have to do it a whole lot. It's not about badges of honor or anything stupid like that, it's about my own personal happiness.

Not driving makes me happy.

100% Disagree on the daycare front - we looked at quite a few daycares that were located on busy streets such as Belmont, Halsted, or Irving Park and had virtually no outdoor space, other than a small concrete patios in the back, with neighborhood parks several blocks away. That isn't the environment i want my kid to spend 9 hours at per day. Those daycares have strict no running on sidewalk rules since the busy streets are so close to the sidewalk, with bus stops right in front.

I'd much rather have my kids in a daycare with a proper park on the property, on a leafy tree lined street where they can run and play on the sidewalk like a normal kid. I don't mind driving in the city, especially if it means I can send my kids to a top tier daycare/pre school in the city.

Where would you rather send your kid, based on location alone:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Be...9!4d-87.659225

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9441...7i16384!8i8192

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The kid-oriented infrastructure (daycares, parks, schools, doctors offices, etc.) assumes almost everyone is arriving by transit, foot or bike.

Our CPS school likes to brag that over 80% of its 650 students arrive on foot.

That's not NYC level, but still a very solid percentage and shows how well the city neighborhood school model can work in terms of getting a lot of those child chauffeuring car trips off of city streets at rush hour.

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

I'd much rather have my kids in a daycare with a proper park on the property, on a leafy tree lined street where they can run and play on the sidewalk like a normal kid.

And I'd much rather have my kids in a school/daycare that they can walk to because I fucking HATE driving in the city. Additionally, "top tier pre-school" is meaningless to me and we couldn't have afforded that shit anyway.

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

Where would you rather send your kid, based on location alone:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Be...9!4d-87.659225

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9441...7i16384!8i8192

Both daycares my kids attended resembled your first example. One on Clark and the other on Lincoln.

I had zero issue with they're locations on busy streets. And most importantly, we could easily walk to them! I mean, they're city kids for fucks sake.

"Heaven forbid they should go to a daycare on a city street, oh the horror!"

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

That's not NYC level, but still a very solid percentage and shows how well the city neighborhood school model can work in terms of getting a lot of those child chauffeuring car trips off of city streets at rush hour.







And I'd much rather have my kids in a school/daycare that they can walk to because I fucking HATE driving in the city. Additionally, "top tier pre-school" is meaningless to me and we couldn't have afforded that shit anyway.







Both daycares my kids attended resembled your first example.

I had zero issue with it. I mean, they're city kids for fucks sake.

"Heaven forbid they should go to a daycare on a city street, oh the horror!"

Different strokes....I wouldn't send my little kids to a daycare on a auto centric "city street" like Belmont, or base the school they go to based on not wanting to drive 1 mile.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

or base the school they go to based on not wanting to drive 1 mile.

I've pretty much based my entire life on not wanting to drive 1 mile (or any distance).

If I had to drive in city traffic everyday I'd likely end up in prison because I would probably just snap one afternoon and start indiscriminately murdering people.

It's a good thing that I don't drive often.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

It's not, and that's what shows how much more efficient driving often is. Toronto is absolutely terrible to drive in and even then it's still usually the best mode of transport in most situations.

It doesn't show any such thing other than that while Toronto is more transit friendly than many metros in NA, it isn't what should be considered a transit city because so much of the built form is built in an auto-centric manner. Not just in the 905, but even large part of the city itself. The rapid transit system is FAR less extensive than it would be in a true "transit" city. Even the excellent bus network has far fewer priority measures than it would in a true transit city. Look at this article from 2020 describing how they were even that recently still planning a network of bus lanes.

Compare the similarly-sized Berlin which is probably one of - if not the - top transit cities in that size range. The u-bahn subway is over double the route length, while the S-Bahn is fully electrified and significantly more frequent than GO with high platform EMUs and multiple routes through the core. Plus the tram network is over double the size of Toronto's. Being "good" in the context of NA - the most suburban and car oriented continent - doesn't make one a "transit city" in which you can reasonably expect transit to do be faster than cars in.

The main reason Toronto is so terrible to drive in is that it's a growing city and metro area whose transportation infrastructure of all types has struggled to keep pace making both the roads and transit overly crowded and less functional. That's not evidence that the city is particularly hostile to cars.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I've pretty much based my entire life on not wanting to drive 1 mile (or any distance).

If I had to drive in city traffic everyday I'd likely end up in prison because I would probably just snap one afternoon and start indiscriminately murdering people.

It's a good thing that I don't drive often.

There's a movie about something like that. Ironically, it was set in L.A.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Here's an interesting chart that shows how public transit commute times compared to cars, % of population using transit, and income difference. Out of the biggest mega metros, it looks like LA has the worst differential when it comes to transit to car commute times. Despite its reputation for freeway congestion, it's not surprising that commuting by car is the preferred method there. It'd be interesting to see what the updated results are after the Purple Line extension, Regional Connector, and Crenshaw Line are online.



https://smartasset.com/mortgage/best...transportation

That's an interesting comparison but it's important to be wary of drawing conclusions about car vs transit average commute times in the denser more urban cities like NY. While some people are captive riders, most people tend to use the mode that best serves their needs, so people commuting between origin and destination pairs that aren't very well served by transit such as in lower density outer areas will be disproportionately using cars and their trips will also be disproportionately faster since they'd be driving in less dense and congested areas. People commuting at non-standard times may also be more likely to use cars since they wouldn't face delays from peak-period congestion.

In other words, there are self-selection problems. In both cases, it would be a mistake to conclude that because the average commute by car is faster, that if the people using transit were to switch to cars their commutes would be faster. And I'm not even talking about how much congestion would be created if every transit user switched, I just mean if any one of them did. To overcome this, you'd need to compare average door-to-door commute times for the different modes using the same trips at the same times. Cars would still be faster in much of NA due to the prevailing urban design characteristics, but they wouldn't be much (if any) faster in more urban cities during peak commute times.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

That's an interesting comparison but it's important to be wary of drawing conclusions about car vs transit average commute times in the denser more urban cities like NY. While some people are captive riders, most people tend to use the mode that best serves their needs, so people commuting between origin and destination pairs that aren't very well served by transit such as in lower density outer areas will be disproportionately using cars and their trips will also be disproportionately faster since they'd be driving in less dense and congested areas. People commuting at non-standard times may also be more likely to use cars since they wouldn't face delays from peak-period congestion.

In other words, there are self-selection problems. In both cases, it would be a mistake to conclude that because the average commute by car is faster, that if the people using transit were to switch to cars their commutes would be faster. And I'm not even talking about how much congestion would be created if every transit user switched, I just mean if any one of them did. To overcome this, you'd need to compare average door-to-door commute times for the different modes using the same trips at the same times. Cars would still be faster in much of NA due to the prevailing urban design characteristics, but they wouldn't be much (if any) faster in more urban cities during peak commute times.

Very good points. I think if we continue to use LA as a case study, it does seem like more improvements (which are happening) are needed in order to improve transit usage rates, before considering something like freeway removal.

[jd3189]

The main thing that should be be stressed in this thread, at least I think, is that urban areas should have a roughly equal diversity of transportation options, rather than being predominantly dependent on the car.

Each transportation mode had its benefits and disadvantages and people should be free to use whatever they want. But in a major urban cores, cars shouldn't be prioritized over walking, biking, and mass transit. When we do that, we deal with the worst aspects of driving ( longer than average commutes, traffic, trouble finding parking) which can overcome any advantage the car gives.

And isn't it capitalistic in a sense to provide more options? We really have big oil and auto companies a field day by essentially making our lives dependent on them. They barely have any competition in the US and other car-centric places. If we built more walkable communities, better cycling infrastructure, and better mass transit, it would diversify the transportation market.

Many current drivers are forced to drive due to circumstance. If you're poorer and live in a car-centric suburb, you have to drive to function. I personally enjoy driving, but even I have my limits with traffic and trying to find parking. It's also not something people should just put up with. There are people for whom driving is difficult if not impossible to do, such as kids, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Plus, having a car can be a financial money pit if you don't have a reliable one.

The personal comfort and independence argument is probably the best one, but still, it ain't worth it in the end if the drawbacks are too significant. The best place to have a car is in suburbia and rural areas, where it is actually needed and is more efficient than the other modes due to the low density nature. But if we want more sustainable cities and high density suburbs, then we need to rethink our over dependence on the car, especially since we destroyed much of our cities for it.

[homebucket]

^ Excellent post.

Someone else touched upon this earlier, but I think in addition to investments in nonautocentric infrastructure, there also needs to be a culture shift. There was an excellent article published today on how to address the people and the mindset behind the steering wheel and encourage a culture change, which I think is very relevant to this discussion.

I think most of us fall into category 2 or 3, whereas there's a couple that seem to be 1. 1 will always remain unconvinced, whereas 3 and 4 will adopt car free or car lite lifestyles as long as infrastructure is in place. Once that is in place, 2 is where you'll get the most bang for the buck if you can get them to adapt to a different culture and see the viability of alternatives.

There Are Just Four Types of Drivers — And Ending Car Dependency Means Reaching Them All
By Kea Wilson
May 17, 2022

1. The Entitled Driver
Certainly the most visible driver on U.S. roads is what Tuttle calls “entitled” drivers — and not just because they often drive the kind of ultra-huge vehicles that are most fatal to pedestrians, cyclists, and even motorists in smaller cars.

That’s because drivers in this category are also among the most likely to drive recklessly or drunk, complain loudly about the already subsidized costs of vehicle ownership, modify their mufflers to announce their presence to anyone within a few blocks, and proudly claim vehicle ownership as their fundamental right, rather than an unfortunate necessity in cities without more mobility options.

Unlike their closest counterpart in Geller’s biking typology — the “strong and fearless” cyclist who will ride even in the most dangerous and inhospitable conditions — Tuttle says that Entitled Drivers aren’t outliers in Portland, where she estimates they constitute about 25 percent of all residents.

That’s in part because U.S. communities often actively accommodate entitled motorist behavior, by designing for dangerously high speeds on neighborhood roads, failing to use policy to disincentivize large vehicle ownership, or even staging photo ops where politicians at all levels of government celebrate aggressive driving and aggressive vehicles.

...

Tuttle’s advice to policymakers who want to to influence entitled drivers is simple: design streets, communities, and policies so it’s clear, at every turn, that excessive and dangerous driving is unacceptable.

2. The Habitual Driver
Tuttle estimates that the largest group of motorists on the road (30 percent of Portland residents) are pretty much only there because it’s what they’ve always done — and because they don’t belong to a culture that’s urged them to question whether there might be a better way to get around.

...

“Simply telling people to stop driving, without demonstrating alternatives they see as viable, just makes people stubbornly fight back,” Tuttle wrote. “Habitual drivers need more carrots (and targeted information) than sticks.”

Tuttle adds that some Habitual Drivers may never totally eliminate their car habit, but they often happily walk, bike, or take transit when doing so seems like the obvious choice — and when driving is at least slightly disincentivized, through accurate pricing of parking, congestion, and the other negative externalities of car use.

3. The Reluctant Driver
Even in eco-conscious Portland, Tuttle says just 5 percent of the residents only climb behind the wheel when they absolutely have to – but that number could be a lot bigger if the language of car dependency were a bigger part of the transportation conversation.

So-called “Reluctant Drivers,” she says, often include people who rarely drive, but can’t quite give up a private vehicle altogether because a handful of their most critical and regular trips can’t be easily completed without one. That includes people who rely on cars to perform their core job functions but would rather not, people who used to take transit before a critical route was cut, and people who just plain don’t want to drive, but don’t see a good alternative. Tuttle notes that she’s a reluctant driver herself.

...

Tuttle says Reluctant Drivers don’t take a whole lot of persuading to get out from behind the wheel, but they do need support to stay there — or they can easily slide towards the “habitual” end of the driving spectrum, just like many of their neighbors.

4. Non-drivers
Tuttle estimates 40 percent of Portlanders are non-drivers, including children, people with disabilities, and people who can’t afford to drive. Just one to two percent of city residents are what she calls “privileged non-drivers of choice.”

...

Tuttle emphasizes that her four categories are just a starting point for conversation, and that other researchers should develop their own methodologies for analyzing their own communities — and identifying strategies to win them over.

“Car drivers are not a monolith,” she adds. “We used to think that cyclists were just ‘middle aged men in lycra’; we’ve moved way beyond that now. It’s really important that we look at people driving cars as a variety of groups that have their own needs, and that [we acknowledge that] it takes different strategies to control and influence them. Simply calling people ‘drivers’ doesn’t cover it.”

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/05/...hing-them-all/

[Doady]

I have made thread about commute mode share in US, Canadian, UK metropolitan areas, maybe worth to post the graphs again:









You can see Canadian metropolitan areas not so different from those in USA but also not so different from the UK. Canada is car-oriented like the US, but it is also transit-oriented like the UK. Look at the UK metropolitan areas with population 1 million to 2 million, there is even some negative correlation between transit ridership and walking/cycling! Look at Quebec City, dominated by freeways, but still better transit ridership than much of UK.

That's why I say to look at car-oriented development and transit-oriented development as conflicting, that going from car to transit as representing a major cultural shift, and so to focus so much on huge expensive projects like freeway removals and subway and light rail lines is a big mistake, and it is the most common mistake made by US cities. Look at Dallas, largest light rail system in the US, but worst ridership in Texas, worse than Seattle which relies mostly on buses. See Las Vegas, another bus-based system, and also a pure post-war and car-oriented urban area, but one of the transit leaders in the USA.

To be a leader in transit doesn't actually take much effort at all. Car culture dominates Canada as much as USA. Car culture dominates Las Vegas as much as Oklahoma City, but you wouldn't know it looking at the transit ridership statistics. Because transit culture is part of car culture too. When cities start seeing the overlap between cars and transit, the small step that transit represents, then they can also start recognizing the small steps required to make transit successful. It's only when cities start seeing cars and transit as separate cultures that their transit systems start to fail.

Look at those UK metropolitan areas above 2 million people, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham: all are much less car-oriented than Toronto, but all also much less transit-oriented than Toronto.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Doady

I have made thread about commute mode share in US, Canadian, UK metropolitan areas, maybe worth to post the graphs again:



You can see Canadian metropolitan areas not so different from those in USA but also not so different from the UK. Canada is car-oriented like the US, but it is also transit-oriented like the UK. Look at the UK metropolitan areas with population 1 million to 2 million, there is even some negative correlation between transit ridership and walking/cycling! Look at Quebec City, dominated by freeways, but still better transit ridership than much of UK.

That's why I say to look at car-oriented development and transit-oriented development as conflicting, that going from car to transit as representing a major cultural shift, and so to focus so much huge expensive projects like freeway removals and subway and light rail lines as a big mistake, and it is the most common mistake made by US cities. Look at Dallas, largest light rail system in the US, but worst ridership in Texas, worse than Seattle which relies mostly on buses. See Las Vegas, another bus-based system, and also a pure post-war and car-oriented urban area, but one of the transit leaders in the USA.

To be a leader in transit doesn't actually take much effort at all. Car culture dominates Canada as much as USA. Car culture dominates Las Vegas as much as Oklahoma City, but you wouldn't know it looking at the transit ridership statistics. Because transit culture is part of car culture too. When cities start seeing the overlap between cars and transit, the small step that transit represents, then they can also start recognizing the small steps required to make transit successful. It's only when cities start seeing cars and transit as separate cultures that their transit systems start to fail.

Look at those UK metropolitan areas above 2 million people, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham: all are much less car-oriented than Toronto, but all also much less transit-oriented than Toronto.

That NYC number is certainly way out of date. Far more people commute to work on bikes now than a decade ago.

[JDRCRASH]

I hate freeways as much as anyone, but come on, all that talk of trying to completely remove some of these heavily used arteries like the 10 and 110 in LA is just as 100% impossible as bulldozing the R-1 neighborhoods that generate a large portion of the auto traffic that uses them. Better off just capping the trenched portions and (maybe) Big-Digging the portions that run aerial through Downtown.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Doady

You can see Canadian metropolitan areas not so different from those in USA but also not so different from the UK. Canada is car-oriented like the US, but it is also transit-oriented like the UK. Look at the UK metropolitan areas with population 1 million to 2 million, there is even some negative correlation between transit ridership and walking/cycling! Look at Quebec City, dominated by freeways, but still better transit ridership than much of UK.

That's why I say to look at car-oriented development and transit-oriented development as conflicting, that going from car to transit as representing a major cultural shift, and so to focus so much on huge expensive projects like freeway removals and subway and light rail lines is a big mistake, and it is the most common mistake made by US cities. Look at Dallas, largest light rail system in the US, but worst ridership in Texas, worse than Seattle which relies mostly on buses. See Las Vegas, another bus-based system, and also a pure post-war and car-oriented urban area, but one of the transit leaders in the USA.

To be a leader in transit doesn't actually take much effort at all. Car culture dominates Canada as much as USA. Car culture dominates Las Vegas as much as Oklahoma City, but you wouldn't know it looking at the transit ridership statistics. Because transit culture is part of car culture too. When cities start seeing the overlap between cars and transit, the small step that transit represents, then they can also start recognizing the small steps required to make transit successful. It's only when cities start seeing cars and transit as separate cultures that their transit systems start to fail.

Look at those UK metropolitan areas above 2 million people, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham: all are much less car-oriented than Toronto, but all also much less transit-oriented than Toronto.

You argue that Canada is transit oriented "like the UK" by showing that Canada's major cities have similar ridership rates to the UK's 2nd tier cities without considering that the comparison could just as easily show the weakness of the 2nd tier UK cities' ridership by showing how they're similar to that of a lower ridership region rather than showing the strength of Canada's. In other words, you're assuming what you're trying to prove.

In reality, the 2nd tier UK cities have long been considered as less transit oriented cities compared to many similar-sized cities in Europe for which I've heard many explanations for including that the UK national gov neglects them to focus on London, but it's hard not to notice that the rapid transit systems seem noticeably modest when you compare say, Manchester and Birmingham to the likes of Stockholm, or Hamburg. But I get your point that there are a variety of factors at play and one shouldn't focus on one to the exclusion of others.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by homebucket

3. The Reluctant Driver

Even in eco-conscious Portland, Tuttle says just 5 percent of the residents only climb behind the wheel when they absolutely have to – but that number could be a lot bigger if the language of car dependency were a bigger part of the transportation conversation.

So-called “Reluctant Drivers,” she says, often include people who rarely drive, but can’t quite give up a private vehicle altogether because a handful of their most critical and regular trips can’t be easily completed without one. That includes people who rely on cars to perform their core job functions but would rather not, people who used to take transit before a critical route was cut, and people who just plain don’t want to drive, but don’t see a good alternative. Tuttle notes that she’s a reluctant driver herself.

that's me for the past 11 years.

i was a non-driver for most of my adult life before that, but my wife came bundled with a car when i met her, and now with two young kids and a paid-off car on a deed parking space, inertia will likely keep me in the "reluctant driver" category for the foreseeable future.

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that's me for the past 11 years.

i was a non-driver for most of my adult life before that, but my wife came bundled with a car when i met her, and now with two young kids and a paid-off car on a deed parking space, inertia will likely keep me in the "reluctant driver" category for the foreseeable future.

I'd wager a large percentage of North Siders in Chicago fall into that category. When I lived in Lakeview, I certainly walked most of the time for daily stuff ( I only put 7K miles a year on my car), but there were things on a daily basis that would just way too inconvenient without a car, such as:

1. Daily pickup/drop for daycare ~1.5 miles away
2. Jiu Jitsu practice in Lincoln Square (3x week) ~3 miles away
3. Gym (midtown athletic club) in Bucktown (4x week) ~4 miles away
4. visiting investment buildings in Bridgeport, Mckinley Park (~2x month) ~12 miles away

I'm not even sure how i would reasonably accomplish these tasks without a car.

[Chisouthside]

You trained at the Redzovics?

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

I'd wager a large percentage of North Siders in Chicago fall into that category. When I lived in Lakeview, I certainly walked most of the time for daily stuff ( I only put 7K miles a year on my car), but there were things on a daily basis that would just way too inconvenient without a car, such as:

1. Daily pickup/drop for daycare ~1.5 miles away
2. Jiu Jitsu practice in Lincoln Square (3x week) ~3 miles away
3. Gym (midtown athletic club) in Bucktown (4x week) ~4 miles away
4. visiting investment buildings in Bridgeport, Mckinley Park (~2x month) ~12 miles away

I'm not even sure how i would reasonably accomplish these tasks without a car.

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Chisouthside

You trained at the Redzovics?

Yep. for 7 years, until Covid hit and they decided to stop talking to each other. I was closest to Adem, but he went downtown and that was too inconvenient for me, plus I had shoulder surgery last year, so it's been a while since i've gone there.