CHICAGO | General Discussions

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

transit in chicago is really only efficient if you live next to a rail stop and work right next to a rail stop on that same line.

throw in a bus ride or a rail-to-rail transfer or a 15 minute walk to/from the station, and the whole fucking clock explodes.



from our home in lincoln square, i can ride my bike the 8 miles up to my job in downtown evanston in ~35 minutes, door-to-door (unless i'm fighting a nasty headwind).

alternatively, i can ride the brown line over to belmont and transfer to the purple line up to evanston. door-to-door, ~45 minutes depending on transfer time (big wildcard!)

alternatively, i can ride the lawrence bus to the ravenswood metra station and ride the UP-N up to downtown evanston. door to door, ~45 minutes because my office schedule doesn't neatly align with metra's schedule.



i just ride my bike.

it's free and faster!

That's more or less my entire point. What Chicago seems to lack are relatively transit-friendly, relatively safe affordable areas. There are lots of safe areas, lots of transit-friendly regions, plenty of affordable areas, but a serious lack of anything reasonably affordable that are relatively safe AND have good transit access.

I certainly live in an area that's relatively safe and affordable, and while transit access is fairly decent, it's still a bit of a time suck to get anywhere, whether by bus or a walk to the Blue Line...

Aaron (Glowrock)

[emathias]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

This is just patently dumb. Poor-performing schools perform poorly because the parents don't care about their kids. Nice.

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

Hey Stevie Wonder, read what I wrote, I never said that....

Regardless, are you arguing that parents involvement in their child's education doesn't impact the likelihood of their child succeeding? Is it a coincidence that top performing schools just so happen to be in more expensive areas of the city? Do the "wealthy schools" get the good teachers and the "poor schools" get the bad teachers? Or is it possible that there is more parent involvement in wealthy areas?

It's not only parental involvement, it has to do with a lot of socioeconomic factors, particularly with poverty.

When you control for demographics, student test scores in Chicago are not nearly as bad. Controlling for demographics when evaluating schools, though, is a huge political hot potato because it comes off as making excuses or not caring or believing that certain students can't do better.

[Baronvonellis]

Originally Posted by glowrock

That's more or less my entire point. What Chicago seems to lack are relatively transit-friendly, relatively safe affordable areas. There are lots of safe areas, lots of transit-friendly regions, plenty of affordable areas, but a serious lack of anything reasonably affordable that are relatively safe AND have good transit access.

I certainly live in an area that's relatively safe and affordable, and while transit access is fairly decent, it's still a bit of a time suck to get anywhere, whether by bus or a walk to the Blue Line...

Aaron (Glowrock)

Yea, that's true and Chicago doesn't have enough cross town connections by train. Since it's a hub and spoke design instead of a web design. Like Munich has half the population of Chicago but about twice as many train lines going everywhere in the city like a web. Then the commuter lines also act like a high speed backbone through the central city, and allow easy transfers between subways to other neighborhood and suburban commuter lines. So that you can get from almost any neighborhood to any random suburb in under 45 minutes. Or any city neighborhood to any other city neighborhood in under 30 minutes.

Chicago just needs to build twice as many subways and transit lines to make that happen haha. And have the metra and cta stations have simple transfers at stations all around Chicago.

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Yea, that's true and Chicago doesn't have enough cross town connections by train. Since it's a hub and spoke design instead of a web design. Like Munich has half the population of Chicago but about twice as many train lines going everywhere in the city like a web. Then the commuter lines also act like a high speed backbone through the central city, and allow easy transfers between subways to other neighborhood and suburban commuter lines. So that you can get from almost any neighborhood to any random suburb in under 45 minutes. Or any city neighborhood to any other city neighborhood in under 30 minutes.

Chicago just needs to build twice as many subways and transit lines to make that happen haha. And have the metra and cta stations have simple transfers at stations all around Chicago.

It will stay that way until they change the structure of the RTA. Obvious, solutions like the Grey Line, more Metra stations in the city and unified ticketing/transfers would be great for the whole region. Instead we get a power struggle between Metra, Pace and CTA. We try to build multi-billion dollar heavy rail line (Red line extension) a few blocks from existing, working tracks.

I was disappointed that this never came up during the Governor’s race.

[SIGSEGV]

Robots and 5D dining experience coming to South Loop, but what does that really mean?

Love Chinese hot pot, but always wished there were fewer real people around and more robots? You’re in luck, as The X Pot plans to move into the Roosevelt Collection Shops (150 W. Roosevelt Road) in the South Loop. According to founder David Zhao, opening is set for May or June of 2020.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/dinin...2uu-story.html


I'm not sure I like this...

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

It will stay that way until they change the structure of the RTA. Obvious, solutions like the Grey Line, more Metra stations in the city and unified ticketing/transfers would be great for the whole region. Instead we get a power struggle between Metra, Pace and CTA. We try to build multi-billion dollar heavy rail line (Red line extension) a few blocks from existing, working tracks.

I was disappointed that this never came up during the Governor’s race.

I hate Toni Preckwinkle for many reasons, but her Cook County DOT has come out in support of regional rail or something like it, on both Metra Electric and Rock Island, because it would benefit south suburbs as well as Far South Side city neighborhoods. And for once, Metra's leadership is (somewhat) receptive.

Of course, this faint progress on Metra Electric/RI is only thanks to a happy coincidence of supportive leaders in various agencies. The structural problem remains... but if they can get real improvements on ME and RI, it would be a good template for the other Metra lines.

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Robots and 5D dining experience coming to South Loop, but what does that really mean?

Love Chinese hot pot, but always wished there were fewer real people around and more robots? You’re in luck, as The X Pot plans to move into the Roosevelt Collection Shops (150 W. Roosevelt Road) in the South Loop. According to founder David Zhao, opening is set for May or June of 2020.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/dinin...2uu-story.html


I'm not sure I like this...

How could this go wrong?

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by emathias

It's not only parental involvement, it has to do with a lot of socioeconomic factors, particularly with poverty.

When you control for demographics, student test scores in Chicago are not nearly as bad. Controlling for demographics when evaluating schools, though, is a huge political hot potato because it comes off as making excuses or not caring or believing that certain students can't do better.

But this makes too much common sense - and is backed up by a lot of empirical evidence. Surely it can't come down to socioeconomics?!

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

For the second time, re-read what I wrote...

I said this:


You paraphrased that I said this:


Where did I say anything about not caring about their kids? You have CNN ears.

I'm not sure who it is you think you're pulling one over on. The relevant example from your post (in terms of parents implicitly not giving a damn) is not Blaine. Blaine is located in fairly affluent Lakeview. The relevant example is xyz school in Englewood (in which you hold if the structure and its teachers were magically plopped down where Blaine stands, it would perform well as Blaine now does......to which the only appropriate response is: no s$it, Lakeview is a pretty affluent neighborhood).

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

How could this go wrong?

Do you have to tip the robots? Will they murder you if you don't? The important questions...

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

How could this go wrong?

I dunno, it should be fine.

Everything I know about robots I learned from the Jetsons. And while Rosie might have had a bit of a case of classic sass-mouth, she always seemed to competently fulfill her duties.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I dunno, it should be fine.

Everything I know about robots I learned from the Jetsons. And while Rosie might have had a bit of a case of classic sass-mouth, she always seemed to competently fulfill her duties.

Let's just hope that Rosie didn't get infected by HAL 9000.

"You know I can't do that, Dave."

Aaron (Glowrock)

[Baronvonellis]

There's a NFL kickoff event in Grant Park today for the 100th season of Da Bears. It's interesting that they set up about 100 Chicago snow plow trucks along LSD as a barrier to the park, maybe to protect from car terrorist attacks? They don't do that for Lolla. They've got Grant Park sealed up like a military complex level security. I wonder if they had some terrorist threats to it or something. Lolla has far more people that attend than this one day event.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

There's a NFL kickoff event in Grant Park today for the 100th season of Da Bears. It's interesting that they set up about 100 Chicago snow plow trucks along LSD as a barrier to the park, maybe to protect from car terrorist attacks? They don't do that for Lolla. They've got Grant Park sealed up like a military complex level security. I wonder if they had some terrorist threats to it or something. Lolla has far more people that attend than this one day event.

Probably more like da guysss from Streets and San were falling all over themselves to attend the Bears event, so they just brought out ALL the snowplows. I don't see them doing that for Ariana Grande or Lana Del Rey...

[Baronvonellis]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Probably more like da guysss from Streets and San were falling all over themselves to attend the Bears event, so they just brought out ALL the snowplows. I don't see them doing that for Ariana Grande or Lana Del Rey...

Yea, but it's a free event open to the public. If they want to attend they can, they didn't need to bring their snow plows lol.

[BrinChi]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Yea, but it's a free event open to the public. If they want to attend they can, they didn't need to bring their snow plows lol.

But this way they can attend AND get paid

[SIGSEGV]

I know glowrock will approve of this news: https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/09...corner-corner/

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

I know glowrock will approve of this news: https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/09...corner-corner/

Oh dear god, please kill me.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by Stockerzzz

https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/09...hare-ald-says/

Sigh...

Don't understand how this is going to do anything other than encourage people to reconvert existing buildings to SFH...

[the urban politician]

Looks like Rosa’s little pet affordable housing project came back with a NIMBY inspired redesign.

To summarize:

Just as ugly
Now shorter with more parking

Yay for NIMBYs!
Yay for Rosa!
Dumb people are why we can’t have nice things