I thought they stopped doing this- Houston communities may lose homes due to freeway

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

there are currently plans to add a lane in each direction to chicago's eisenhower expressway (I-290)where it chokes down from the 4 lanes to 3 lanes in each direction just as it leaves the city going west at roughly austin blvd. that 3 lane section runs for ~5 miles where it then opens back up into 4 lanes in each direction. the current plan is for the new lane to be a HOT lane, while also converting one of the general use lanes on the 4 lane sections to the same HOT lane as well. there is no eminent domain planned as far as i am aware for the expansion. the current ROW apparently has room to accommodate the newly configured lanes, along with the CTA blue line L tracks.

as the main expressway link between the city and its VAST expanse of western suburbia, those 4-lane to 3-lane choke points have been MASSIVE traffic-jam-inducing headaches in chicagoland for several generations now.

as an urbanist, i'm generally not in favor of new expressway construction/expansion (duh), but this particular project seems like a reasonable compromise to eliminate some MAJOR chokepoints on a very poorly designed old-school urban expressway from the '50s, while also converting one currently general use lane into a HOT lane all the way from downtown out to the tri-state tollway (I-294). when it's all said and done, it'll be 4 lanes in each direction (one of them HOT) with the blue line L running down the median. IMO, that's not an egregious amount of road for one of the most important transportation corridors in the entire midwest. an expansion to one of these texas-sized 16+ lane urban expressways would be straight-up off the table these days.

It's like you guys never heard of induce demand. None of these expansion will save anyone time commuting and the money would have been better spent improving transit

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[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Nite

It's like you guys never heard of induce demand. None of these expansion will save anyone time commuting and the money would have been better spent improving transit

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Nevermind. It isnt worth it. Delete.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Nite

It's like you guys never heard of induce demand.

i've definitely heard of induced demand, but the proposed I-290 rebuild in chicago isn't so much about increasing overall peak capacity as it is about eliminating unnecessary chokepoints and dangerous, outdated center-style entrance/exit ramps.

we'll go from an expressway with 4 general use lanes each way that inexplicably constricts to 3 lanes each way for 5 miles in the middle of it, to one with 3 general use lanes each way with a brand new HOT 3+ lane each way to encourage people to use their cars more efficiently (or pay a hefty toll). it certainly won't do much to eliminate peak rush-hour back-ups, but it could go a long way toward improving traffic flow on the expressway at all other times.

that's a reasonable compromise that i can get on board with. if they were talking about eminent-domaining a whole new swath of city to expand it into to some 16 lane monster with 5 express and 3 local lanes each way, THAT i would be very much against.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i've definitely heard of induced demand, but the proposed I-290 rebuild in chicago isn't so much about increasing overall capacity as it is about eliminating unnecessary chokepoints and dangerous, outdated center-style entrance/exit ramps.

we'll go from an expressway with 4 general use lanes each way that inexplicably constricts to 3 lanes each way for 5 miles in the middle of it, to one with 3 general use lanes each way with a brand new HOT 3+ lane each way to encourage people to use their cars more efficiently (or pay a hefty toll). it certainly won't do much to eliminate peak rush-hour back-ups, but it could go a long way toward improving traffic flow on the expressway at all other times.

that's a reasonable compromise that i can get on board with. if they were talking about eminent-domaining a whole new swath of city to expand it into to some 16 lane monster with 5 express and 3 local lanes each way, THAT i would be very much against.

Seems like a very important upgrade for tnt entire system. I don't understand why some transit advocates can't admit that some roadway projects are worthwhile. Do they think that cars and trucks are gonna disappear from our cities any time soon?

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i've definitely heard of induced demand, but the proposed I-290 rebuild in chicago isn't so much about increasing overall peak capacity as it is about eliminating unnecessary chokepoints and dangerous, outdated center-style entrance/exit ramps.

we'll go from an expressway with 4 general use lanes each way that inexplicably constricts to 3 lanes each way for 5 miles in the middle of it, to one with 3 general use lanes each way with a brand new HOT 3+ lane each way to encourage people to use their cars more efficiently (or pay a hefty toll). it certainly won't do much to eliminate peak rush-hour back-ups, but it could go a long way toward improving traffic flow on the expressway at all other times.

that's a reasonable compromise that i can get on board with. if they were talking about eminent-domaining a whole new swath of city to expand it into to some 16 lane monster with 5 express and 3 local lanes each way, THAT i would be very much against.

If removing the choke point cause more people to use the expressway then you have induced the demand and have not shorten the commute time for anyone. As the case with Toronto i used earlier you will get much more bang for your buck by instead investing this money into transit as transit can carry as much as 35 lanes of highways as the case of the Yonge line in Toronto vs the DVP Expressway.

Peak Usage:
Don Valley Expressway: 7,000 per hour per direction
Yonge Subway: 30,000 people per hour per direction

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Nite

If removing the choke point cause more people to use the expressway

that's doubtful.

the crush load at peak rush hour will still be what it will be, and it won't be pretty. that's the just the nature of the beast with chicago's generally undersized expressway infrastructure for a metro area of 9.5 million. rush hour will never be "solved" here. people have a shit-ton of train options to get downtown, but if they'd rather sit in one of our linear parking lots every morning that's on them. alternatives exist.

what the new configuration will allow for is a consistent 3 general use lanes each way, the whole way, and then 1 HOT 3+ lane than can only be used by vehicles with 3+ occupants or those willing to pay a hefty toll to bypass the traffic. instead of the current arrangement where 4 lanes become 3 lanes and then 4 lanes again for really no good reason.

you can actually look at the project as taking away a general use lane and replacing it with a HOT 3+ lane in each direction.

i can totally live with that very reasonable compromise, as i imagine the vast majority of reasonable people can.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that's the just the nature of the beast with chicago's generally undersized expressway infrastructure for a metro area of 9.5 million.

You're right. If Chicago would have gone on a freeway building spree in the 1950s like LA and Detroit (i.e. the 3rd and 4th largest metros at the time), it would probably have a north-south freeway roughly parallel to Cicero Ave. or maybe even closer, like Western Ave. Good thing it didn't do that!

Was anything like this contemplated? Is cross-town traffic (N-S) not that big a deal in Chicago? It feels like you have to go pretty far west to cross the region north-south without driving on the Kennedy Expwy, and then you have to do so on toll roads. What's also funny is how the 294 and 355 are fairly close to one another, but then there's no north-south highway further west, even though the region sprawls for many miles that way.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Was anything like this contemplated?.

yes, a "crosstown expressway" roughly paralleling cicero ave. was considered a forgone conclusion back in the heady days of unbridled expressway enthusiasm.

but it never came to pass, and now that the new expressway ship has sailed, i can't see it ever becoming a thing given the monumental pushback such a project would now bring.

i remember king richard II resurrected the idea briefly during his reign, proposing a hybrid truck-only/BRT kinda thing along that route, but it never went anywhere.