Yesterday I went out to the exurban village of New Lenox to review one of the most remote breweries on the Brews & Choos list, near the Laraway Road station on the Southwest Service. (Fun fact: After decades of living here, I have now taken every one of Chicago's commuter rail lines at least once.)
I had planned to walk from there to Rock Island train station in the center of town, as the Southwest Service didn't have a return train until 10:30pm. I knew the first 2 kilometers of the walk would have some challenges as I would have to walk along two highways. But the satellite photos did not prepare me for how hostile the walking environment would be on the ground:
I'll walk along a shoulder if needed, and I'll even walk along short grass. But that stuff came up to my knees.
Then, this morning, I woke up to three stories about urban planning failures right here in Chicago that make me want to take every engineer in IDOT on a forced march along the stretch of Laraway Road pictured above:
- Despite multiple bike fatalities, the good people of Lincolnwood have decided to reject $2.5 million in state funds to build bike lanes on a dangerous stretch of stroad.
- The Chicago Transit Authority has announced a $4.9 billion plan to install elevators at all of the El and subway stations that need them—by 2038.
- State and local officials joined residents yesterday at Truman College to protest IDOT's backwards-looking plan to redesign DuSable Lake Shore Drive, as the state plan has no concessions for mass transit and would in fact make traffic worse.
Cars are killing us. (Literally: the US has 40,000 traffic deaths a year, far more than any other country.) And yet state transit departments seem to think their only mandate is to increase the number of cars on the road.