CHICAGO: ORD & MDW discussion

[whyhuhwhy]

Originally Posted by ardecila

but you can't say there aren't good alternatives to driving in the corridor.

Sure I can. I mean we are talking about reverse commute traffic. Metra is great for commuting INTO the LOOP from a suburban parking lot that people drive to get to in the first place. It is horrible for the opposite, and for obvious reasons. If you live in the city and have to work in the suburbs, forget it, you are driving 99% of the time. Just think about it. Most people first of all don't live in the Loop or near a Metra station. In fact I don't even no a single person that lives in the Loop, everyone I know lives in some neighborhood nowhere near a Metra station. So in order to even leave the city they have to somehow get to a Metra station on the exact right line, which 9 times out of 10 probably means they need to get their ass to Union Station. This means a commute to the Loop to begin with, just to begin to leave the city. Once they reach the Loop, they better be on time for the train leaving for the suburbs. After that, forget it. What percent of jobs are centered around suburban Metra stations and are walkable, or near a Pace bus station. In fact, even if it is near a Pace bus station I don't expect any human being to take the L to the Loop, which doesn't even have a stop at Union Station, so they have to get out and walk several blocks to get to Union Station, then transfer to Metra, then transfer to Pace, and do the whole thing over again back home. Unless they don't mind commuting half the day. Even if someone has an apartment in Union Station, if that were possible, you are still 9 times out of 10 stuck once you get out to the suburbs unless you have a car waiting for you.

Personally speaking, I have two friends who live in the city and work in the suburbs. And I know that it is not uncommon. These are young, able bodied men who are well aware of the alternatives to driving, and have TRIED THEM. I doubt there is a single soul who reverse commutes every day who, sitting with nothing but brake lights in front of them as far as the eye can see, has not thought of every alternative way to NOT be in the hellhole situation that they are currently sitting in. And saying that they should just move out of the city and to the suburbs is not a solution we should encourage. Saying they should get another job would also be ridiculous. Saying that they should buy a car and have it parked out in the suburbs at the Metra lots and move near to Union Station is even moreso. I'm not saying that you're saying these things but I have heard these "alternatives" brought up before. IMO these aren't real "alternatives" and they do nothing to solve the big picture problem.

In fact, what this impossibly horrible inbound traffic for reverse commuters does is encourage sprawl, because yes, the easiest (and cheapest) alternative to all this is just plain and simply move out of the city, and get a place out in the suburbs. In fact that is what my friends will be doing, and they feel almost forced to. We are forcing people out of the city by effectively making it very difficult to get back into it for anyone that lives here. I'm not sure why this is being dismissed by IDOT. Perhaps once the Tollway constructions projects are all complete it will free up so many construction workers that we may see a solution proposed though.

So yeah, I hope that they start looking at solutions to the problem of bottlenecks that Chicago has. Especially when we are talking about city dwelling folks. Having 6 lanes go into 4 lanes is a bottleneck and backs up the entire Kennedy and Edens every afternoon here. It's basically a giant finger from IDOT every afternoon for people that live in the city or want to get into it. Perhaps this is why it isn't pressing though to them, because they figure these are city folks who "can take transit." There are multiple reasons they aren't, not the least of which is how there is no real mass transit once they get out to the suburbs where they work (nor should there have to be with such low density).

Most people who are driving on the Edens or Kennedy at this point are people who obviously can AFFORD to spend so much time sitting in traffic in exchange for the comforts and convenience of an auto.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they have no choice. Getting to Union Station and getting dropped off at a Metra station in the burbs where you bought an extra car that is parked out there, just to get to work, may be asking way too much of your average commuter. Either way rationalizing it that they can "afford" to just sit in hours of traffic every day does nothing to solve the actual problem.

Highway engineers would blame the severe congestion on the city's decision not to build the Crosstown back in the 70s.

Yes. Is this on the table at all?

Turning the reversible lanes into HOV has been tossed around, but IDOT is resistant to the whole idea of HOV, so they've always dismissed it. Design-wise, it would be challenging to turn the reversible lanes into regular lanes, because of the Blue Line tracks. The configuration of inbound-reversible-tracks-outbound means that there are more lanes on the inbound side than the outbound, or vice versa; they can't be split evenly between the travel directions without completely rebuilding the Blue Line.

I've noticed this. But there is no such thing as "can't" in my book. It is always said by people who have given up it seems (not saying this is you personally). I have been told I can't do certain things my whole life and I always at least look for a solution and am able to find ways. When I've seen what they've done creatively with highways in Texas and California, building up rather than just out, I just can't take "can't" seriously when I come back here and none of the highways are three dimensional save for interchanges, and there are so many bottlenecks that are clearly outdated.

North of the junction, I don't think it's a good idea to widen the Kennedy or Edens. Both highways are 3 lanes deliberately, to reduce traffic volume to capacity levels that the junction, and the Kennedy south of it, can handle.

Why can't they widen the northbound only then? Northbound is backed up consistently at all hours of the day on the Kennedy (but rarely the Edens). So free up capacity there. It would keep 90/94 moving better, and the Kennedy widens to 4 lanes at Cumberland anyways. Clearly there is a disharmony in capacity demand and the highway demand for each is no longer equal. Is there some law that states you have to have equal lanes on both sides? Curious. I would think they could adjust for modern demand.