It was an extraordinary aldermanic broadside against the Illinois Department of Transportation and its long-in-gestation plans for a redo of the iconic Chicago road now formally known as North Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable Lake Shore Drive (NDLSD), perhaps the most beautiful and famous ribbon of asphalt in the Midwest.
“We are calling for a halt to planning events, public meetings and other work related to the project,” a group of aldermen wrote in our Opinion section June 7, hardly mincing words and essentially summoning IDOT to explain itself before the City Council. “We believe this project as currently proposed does not represent our communities’ interests and the long-term viability, accessibility, and value of our neighborhoods and lakefront.”
The issue? Cars.
The aldermen, who are supported by a yet-broader group of advocates, don’t like them, want them nor wish them to be so warmly accommodated (for free) as in the past. “We want modern solutions that prioritize non-car travel and put pedestrians, cyclists, public transit users, recreation, green space, commercial growth and property values ahead of cars,” they wrote.
We’ll get to the specific issues in a moment with NDLSD, which is driven by some 170,000 vehicles a day, according to IDOT, but let’s first acknowledge that Chicago is the site of an intense, activist campaign to get people out of their cars and realign the city so transit and bikes will rule the roost. It’s not just about adding capacity for those forms of transportation, which was the argument typically used in the past. It’s now just as much about disincentivizing driving and making it harder and that’s what has been taking place with many Chicago streets seeing reduced capacity for cars through euphemisms such as “traffic calming.” A useful analogy here is how airlines deliberately made economy class worse to motivate people to pay up for premium economy. That’s the new tactic now being used. To get people out of their cars, the thinking goes, urban driving has to be made more uncomfortable, a departure, of course, from some 75 years (at least) of prior thinking.
Whatever side you are on, honesty requires acknowledging that the debate is strikingly one-sided because while bike and transit advocates articulate their points of view all over the media, car drivers don’t really have anyone representing their interests, beyond perhaps IDOT. Most car users are embarrassed to admit they drive and keep it quiet; many claim to drive far less than they actually do. An occasional biker but frequent driver will confine virtue-signaling social media posts only to the former mode. We all know them. Some of us are talking about ourselves.
But anyone can look up transit ridership numbers, or (while sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic) see that congestion on Chicago expressways, particularly midweek, is worse than before the pandemic. There are many reasons: convenience, climate, control, speed, a perception of a safer trip, but one rarely acknowledged is the arrival of the two- or three-day in-person workweek. Instead of paying a hefty monthly parking bill, drivers can just summon up SpotHero for a couple of days; that’s a big new incentive.
It’s also worth noting that this anti-car radicalism is a tacit acknowledgement of the unexpected backlash against electric vehicles. Not many years ago, thoughtful environmentalists dreamed of affordable EVs quietly zipping up and down DLSD, maybe even a charge-as-you-go DLSD (such roadways exist in Detroit and abroad). But the words electric cars are nowhere in the aldermanic missive; cars are just cars. Perhaps Elon Musk becoming a persona non grata in liberal circles has something to do with that. But it’s a shame.
The attack on Refine the Drive strikes us as extreme. It’s actually a thoughtful document that goes a long way toward removing the barrier between the city and its lakefront, adding more trees and green space, making it far easier to cross the roadway in multiple locations, aiding bus access and adding turnarounds and expanding pedestrian space (there is, after all, a bike path already right there). We’re particularly interested in what the plan could do for the northern end of Michigan Avenue, where the road is especially burdensome, currently forcing pedestrians through a dystopian underground tunnel to get to the beach. There’s a chance now to open up the Mag Mile to the water in such a spectacular way as to help restore its economic and aesthetic fortunes. That would be a very big deal, if done right.
We’re big fans of transit and it’s true that the idea of some kind of light rail running up and down NDLSD, maybe from Loyola to McCormick Place, is very appealing. But the Refine the Drive process rejected that idea mostly on the grounds of its massive cost, but also on the lack of modality. To connect to existing rail would likely require tunneling west, and any train would also need a railyard of some kind, which presents its own problems; the CTA has chosen to focus on the expansion of the Red Line at the other end of the city.
Even transit advocates we know say that what we talking about in the real world for NDLSD is express bus lanes, which would be great for anyone riding one of those buses and might well reduce the traffic overall. But the problem is the inevitable reduction in lane capacity and where those drivers would go: they might choke all the alternates. Suburbanites make up a lot of NDLSD drivers and if they are to be expected to leave their cars and hop on an express bus, they will have to be accommodated with kiss-and-ride-type parking lots, or vastly improved Metra service. The danger of unintended consequences is everywhere, including impossible traffic jams that undermine downtown businesses like restaurants and theaters, not to mention the recovery of commercial real estate. Chicago has to compete with free suburban parking, and that won’t change.
We’re arguing here for several things. One is acknowledging the sorry state of public transit in the city and its unacceptable decline since the pandemic, a problem of management as much as resources. Discretionary riders will not easily be shamed into its use; they will have to perceive it as a solution. Another is that the aldermen should not tear down the fine work done by IDOT and others on Redefine the Drive but acknowledge its worth and then proceed incrementally to make it better, especially when it comes to buses. A third is recognition that some Illinoisans have to drive, and the city’s economy depends in no small part on them. Cars are not the devil’s vehicles, especially when they are electric. The aldermen are not going to force them out of Chicago. Voters will rebel.
But, at the end of the day, all of Chicago has to openly debate what’s really at the core of this disagreement. Refine the Drive makes many changes but nonetheless keeps NDLSD as an express road (terms such as freeway and boulevard tend to be ideologically laden), which means a road where you get on and then proceed to your chosen exit without traffic lights or other crossings in your way, whether in a car or on a bus.
The foundational question is whether this is what Chicago still wants.
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