Category Archives: chicagoland

Line extensions

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(posted as Transport Politic comment)

Chicago was always a surface-lines town, which served it well when the region was essentially a series of factory towns orbiting around a commercial core. But travel patterns have changed; distances have increased and jobs have aggregated into centers and corridors (although not necessarily in transit-ready patterns).

Extending the principal cross-town rapid transit service (the Red Line) for “the last five miles” — it reaches the city’s north border, but stops well short of its south — should be a high priority. The largely low-income and transit-dependent far south side has lost countless heavy-industry jobs. Having gone there last weekend, it takes a double bus connection or infrequent commuter rail to get anywhere, compounding its distance from the N/NW “favored quarter.” These lines have been on transit plans for 100 years; the Orange Line “extension” proposed was even part of the original proposal but got value engineered out. (In the intervening 20 years, though, the original terminal area has declined economically, and I’m not sure whether it can really come back. The Yellow Line extension is interesting and restores access to a major job center, but pretty small in the grand scheme.)

Given the distances involved (12-16 mi. as the crow flies from downtown), there’s no way for surface transit to serve the same need. That said, there’s no local match money available for anything, anyways.

The Circle Line looks interesting on a map, but it’s an expensive solution in search of a problem. It serves a corridor of middling job/population density and limited growth potential, and offers minimal rider time savings. Other proposals to enhance downtown distribution, or improve crosstown buses, would offer better time savings and TOD potential.

Oh, and BRT? Impossible, since IDOT jealously guards its sacred freeway lanes, and Morgan Stanley is holding our parking meters hostage until our great-grandchildren come around.

(And an addendum on the Circle Line: a finding from a thorough calculation of its merits by Ritesh Warade finds that “the majority of the transit accessibility to households impacts of the Circle Line project have already been achieved after implementation of the Pink Line project… travel time reductions are not sufficient for the Circle Line project to have substantial accessibility impacts above and beyond those of the Pink Line project.” The marginal increase in transit riders’ accessibility to jobs that the Circle Line would achieve is 0.2%.)

Quizzed

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Several weeks ago, I attended a hybrid meeting in Oak Park: a discussion on local historic preservation challenges (of which there are many) followed by a visioning session for GO TO 2040, CMAP’s current long-range regional visioning process.

The visioning session uses CMAP’s instant-polling process to develop a regional growth scenario based on the choices of those in the room. There’s pretty quick feedback, too — the system spits back a report card of outcomes right after the scenario’s basics have been set.

A few improvements I’d make, or general drawbacks to this approach:
1. The feedback metrics are still pretty darn wonky. It’s tough to avoid this, of course, since part of the entire problem with regional planning is that all of it is way too abstract. (Jane Citizen typically isn’t motivated by the idea of “there will be a few PPM less of air pollution in the sky if I do this.”) Metropolis 2020’s work on regional metrics came up with some good metrics that people can relate to, like “hours spent in a car”; maybe these could be brought into the scenario modeling.
2. The presentation format tried a bit too hard with the hokeyness, especially for what seemed to be a very buttoned-up Oak Park crowd. This was Unity Temple, after all.
3. The choices presented to the audience always were in groups of three. The three choices always ended up sounding like a Goldilocks scenario: “too hot — too cold — just right,” and it’s no surprise that answers flowed towards “just right.”
4. The presenters found themselves constantly apologizing for the illustrations for the choices; many were photographs of buildings or a neighborhood, when they were really aiming to illustrate region-wide approaches. Perhaps illustrations showing a broader approach would have been more appropriate.

Not as cosmopolitan as one might think

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A rebuttal to two common conceits about NYC vs. Chicago, in an attempt to clarify.

1. “Chicago is more segregated than New York.”

From CensusScope analysis of 2000 Census data, this is false. The usual measure of segregation is called the dissimilarity index; an index of 100 implies total segregation between two groups. The New York PMSA in 2000 had a black-white dissimilarity index of 84.3 and a Latino-white dissimilarity index of 69.3. Chicago’s comparable indices are 83.6 for black-white and 64.8 for Latino-white.

2. “You only find Midwesterners in Chicago. New York draws from all over the country.”

An admittedly dated (from 1999, using 1990 Census data) analysis by USC professor Dowell Myers [PDF, pp. 934] found that a similar proportion of New York and Chicago region residents* were born within their respective tri-state areas. 57.6% of New Yorkers were born in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut; 60.5% of Chicagoans were born in Illinois, Indiana, or Wisconsin. For all its claims to be a national draw, only 18% of New Yorkers moved from other states/territories, while 24.8% of Chicagoans moved from outside its region (but within the country). By comparison, in the Washington, D.C. region, “long believed to be a region of transient residents who came to town for short tours as students, military officers or federal workers” (as the WaPo wrote in 1991), only 34.5% of residents were born within D.C., Maryland, or Virginia.

This particular complaint is often levied against the Lincoln Park area, with its “Big 10 frat party” feel, although fewer than 1 in 120 Chicago region residents live there. Yet the New York region’s white population is even more provincial than the Chicago region’s: fully 73.4% of New York’s white residents were born within the tri-state area, vs. 71% of the Chicago region’s.

Far more of New York’s population was born abroad (24.5% vs. 14.7%), although Los Angeles easily beats both with 30.1% of its residents being foreign-born — which, in turn, pales against Toronto’s 46%.

* Over 25.

Shed some daylight

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When riding north on N. Oakley, between St. Mary’s parking lot and Clemente High School’s playing fields, I always hear the sound of rushing water. Even in entirely dry months, a long-forgotten stream can be heard through a storm drain at the intersection with Potomac. Did this creek ever have a name? Does it flow more or less where it was, or has it been routed through the grid? Where are its headwaters, where does it meet the river?

Such lost streams have been well-documented in, say, London where countless old maps show the terrain as it existed centuries before industrialization wiped it all away. I haven’t spent much time looking (it’d be a great excuse to sit at the Newberry for a day), but it seems that many 19th century maps of pre-subdivision Chicago wanted to show the city as the speculators hawked it (a vast blank slate ready for development) rather than as it actually was.

(On a side note, I did find this 1898 bike map at the Regenstein’s web site. Back then, an “appropriate” road for cycling was a paved one.)

I’m also struck by how the buildings around it have been wiped away by urban renewal. I vaguely remember a presentation from years ago — I don’t remember by whom — which overlaid a map of abandoned properties in a Philadelphia neighborhood with a map of its subterranean stream. Homes located nearest the stream were much more likely to be abandoned, perhaps in part because of costly foundation troubles — but perhaps, also, the old hydrology’s “miasma” is taking revenge.

Postponing the inevitable

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inevitable Originally uploaded by Payton Chung

Cook County has had a 7% annual cap on assessed value increases since 2002. (Said cap is also undergoing a scheduled phase-out, which will increase tax bills more steeply than assumed here.) Property tax bills will rise this year, despite falling property values; this graph explains why property taxes will in fact take a while to catch up with market values.

‘A cap, which gives homeowners comfort in a rising market, can, however, create the opposite effect in a down market. In Texas, which sets a 10 percent limit, property values rose by as much as 18 percent per year during the past decade, but assessed valuation could go up by only 10 percent per year. As a consequence, a large gap exists between real market value and taxable value. Because of that gap, assessed value may go up this year even though market value is coming down. Until the two come together — the market value falls to the level of the taxable value — 5 to 10 percent increases in assessments are a real possibility. “That’s going to be another contributory factor in taxpayer frustration,” says [Guy] Griscom, who is the assistant chief appraiser for Harris County. “Legislatures didn’t look at that side of it when they gave property owners the benefit of these caps. Ultimately you have to pay it back. This is not what people want to hear.” ‘ – Penelope Lemov, Governing magazine

(Assumed $100K property in year 2002 [and that assessed value equaled market value, which is probably not the case in Cook County], using 2002-2009 price appreciation trendline reported for zip code 60647 at Zillow.com, then assuming a 30% drop from 2008 peak by 2010.)

Lemony fresh

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I have heard a lot over the years (particularly from one individual) about how Wicker Park-Bucktown should be like a neighborhood as well known for the arts as New Orleans’ French Quarter. While I empathize with the general concept, I’ve been skeptical of how pleasant it would be to actually live in the Quarter, and very much skeptical of the particulars that have been suggested. I think that the physical form of the Quarter — there being so few human-scale places, much less human-scale neighborhoods, in the USA — is a large part of its intrinsic appeal. (I would love to live amidst a skein of 38.5′ streets, but 2.5 FQ streets could easily fit into Ashland or Western.) It also has a very long (over a century older) and uniquely colorful social history that can’t be replicated anywhere else.

So I just got back from my first visit to New Orleans, and guess what? We’re doing something right, although not what this individual thinks. The French Quarter’s streets aren’t just swept and washed, they are deodorized every day by a private contractor, at a cost of $3.36 million a year. (Despite 2009 budget cuts in that sadly struggling city, the “popular” and “Disney-like” service is likely to remain in some form.)

There is also almost no notable public art to be seen on any of the sidewalks or squares, and likewise relatively few architectural monuments: just great background buildings, housing countless businesses both arts-related and otherwise. Oh, and you can stumble across some astonishing jazz.

One other aspect of efficient and effective municipal management where New Orleans (of all places!) seems to be ahead: deployment of the Pothole Killer machine, instead of three-man crews, requires 90% less labor for the same task — one-third the laborers and one-third the time. If faster turnaround leads to smaller potholes, the savings would increase further. It seems to leave a lot of gravel on the road, though.

Link dump

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A whole bunch of links, mostly transportation related.

* Is the era of “TINA” market fundamentalism finally over? Let’s hope so. Howard Wolfson in TNR: “Just as President Bush’s failures in Iraq undermined his party’s historic advantage on national security issues, the financial calamity has shown the ruinous implications of the Republican mania for deregulation and slavish devotion to totally unfettered markets.” And then there’s this pretty astonishing Newsweek article from reformed neocon Francis Fukuyama: “Like all transformative movements, the Reagan revolution lost its way because for many followers it became an unimpeachable ideology, not a pragmatic response to the excesses of the welfare state… Already there is a growing consensus on the need to re-regulate many parts of the economy… And in many parts of the world, American ideas, advice and even aid will be less welcome than they are now.”

* The Pew Center has a new consumer-targeted site, Make an Impact, which offers useful information — but is curiously housed at Alcoa.com. I don’t see a whole lot of pro-aluminum propaganda, but it’s still an odd PR choice. Something that site links to which I wasn’t aware of: FHWA offers some mediocre transportation-alternatives PSAs at its site, under the banner It All Adds Up To Cleaner Air. Another somewhat curious instance of corporate PR: leading trainset manufacturer Bombardier has a jazzy new subsite proclaiming that the climate is right for trains. All your railfan arguments in one place, and constantly updated.

* A new study of the “virtuous cycle: safety in numbers” [blogged here in 2005] hypothesis has been issued by an Australian university.

* One city that offers safety in numbers is Montreal, where bicycling and style are both so ubiquitous that they’ve melded on the streets. [found in Momentum magazine]

* Eric de Place from Sightline quotes me in his roundup of Comprehensive Car-Free Hiking in the Northwest. (His original post, about a shuttle up to Snohomish Pass, got me thinking about car-free wilderness vacations.) And apparently, sightseeing by bike isn’t just for us dilettantes; it’s also good enough for Olympians in Beijing.

* Two Greg Hinz tidbits: (1) it turns out that a VP of bicycle-component maker SRAM, F. K. Day, is in the same six-figure Obama-fundraising league as Valerie Jarrett. I suspect that has something to do with this June bike-industry fundraiser that he hosted for Bikes Belong Coalition’s board. [Bikes Belong Coalition is a 501c6 that can participate in political activities, although it has an affiliated 501c3 foundation.] (2) Hinz wrote a column calling for “an armistice” between cyclists and drivers. Valiant, but still seems a touch “car-headed,” considering he talked to a major ER’s chairman who said he’s seeing “more than usual” numbers of injured bicyclists — nearly one a day, with most admitted to the hospital. I bet there aren’t nearly that many drivers checking in with bicycle-related injuries. I also bet that most of those crashes were the drivers’ fault; as is the case in bike-car crashes elsewhere.

* Walk Score has published neighborhood rankings for most major U.S. cities. It’s subject to the usual Walk Score caveats, but the cross-city comparisons are pretty fascinating, as a baseline comparison of urbanity. For instance, LA edges out Portland, and Houston beats Austin.

* Apparently, I’m not the only one annoyed with how much power gyms hog — the blasting AC, dozens of fans, countless TVs, mountains of laundry, and yes, all those powered aerobics machines. All this fossil fuel burned so that people can replicate movements that (for the most part) people have done outdoors without fossil fuel for centuries (running, cycling, rowing, skiing, lifting heavy objects). A tiny new “green gym” in PDX generates its own electricity from yes, the machines (those wattage calculators actually mean something) and from solar panels. The techno-wizardry aside, it exudes the right “reduce” attitude: no towels, members living within walking distance.

* Civia Cycles (a/k/a Surly/Salsa/QBP) has released Greenlight, an online “league” for commuters who religiously note their bike-computer readouts. Sure, behavioral economics teaches us that the right amount of feedback, peer pressure, and competition can motivate people to change their habits — combined with incentives, of course. (I’ve argued that cycling creates positive externalities and thus should be incented by government. Yet somehow these programs seem a bit clumsy; I’ve never gotten the swing of bicycle computers (and I’ve owned two). Surely, in this day of ubiquitous computing, we can come up with seamless systems — like the Nike+iPod product. Humana’s on-campus bike sharing program (the same one brought to the DNC/RNC as Freewheelin‘) automatically uploads mileage information to a central computer; this can be linked to one’s individual account to measure progress towards fitness goals, but requires lots of fiddly hardware. Even more promising is the PEIR project from UCLA and Nokia; it uses mobiles’ GPS systems (and perhaps additional onboard sensors, like for air pollution) to follow users’ paths — and could extend to accommodate countless additional user inputs, from pollution to scenery, pavement quality, available alternate routes, the works. (Okay, so the privacy factor is a bit eerie.)

* Timothy Noah in Slate makes Brookings’ argument for them: the “authentic small town ‘main street’ ” that Sarah Palin and others fetishize is not where “real Americans” live. 84% of Americans, including the Palin family, live in metropolitan areas, and it’s far past time to get used to that reality. And speaking of metros and politics, interesting to note that The Big Sort‘s author Bill Bishop now has a blog at Slate, just in time to provide some segmentation analysis for the election-sprint season. He notes that the people-exporting county to Colorado in recent years has been Los Angeles County; I’d be willing to bet that it’s also the largest exporter to Nevada, another battleground. Northeastern relocatees are definitely a large factor in political shifts in Virginia and North Carolina. Yet these booming, transient communities are still finding their political identities — the tremendous Democratic field operation (I spent half my life there, but I’d never have guessed that Cary, N.C. would ever have a stripmall housing a black Democratic presidential candidate’s field office amid a row of curry shops) has an opportunity to lock in lasting gains.

* New site feature: click on the Dopplr link under Site News to get a rough idea of my travels. This also might help to explain occasional extended absences from the blog.

a different Bucktown parking gripe

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The Bucktown Community Organization recently voted, 11-5, to support a zoning change requested by a developer proposing a retail and parking structure at 1615 N. Damen Ave. I stayed away since I’d had a long day at the office and didn’t particularly want to sprint back home just to get into a shouting match over parking, so now I’ll just vent like a typical paper-tiger blogger.

From a traffic, transportation demand management, land use, safety — from every single standpoint, this is a singularly awful place to put a parking garage. In fact, the forthcoming WPB plan unequivocally states: “In identifying locations for possible future parking lots, we concluded that the one location that is not appropriate is in the area of the Six Corners intersection.” We want people walking past our neighborhood’s shops to get to Milwaukee, North, & Damen [MN&D] — as opposed to driving right there; we can’t fit any more cars at the neighborhood’s most congested spot; and frankly, the neighborhood deserves better. State & Washington, or Michigan & Chicago, don’t have parking garages hulking over them, and neither should MN&D.

In the grand scheme of things, the number of spaces (around 100?) is pretty marginal; this is a good/bad or bad/good thing, depending on your perspective. It’s too small to materially affect “the parking problem,” and probably too small to really impact traffic flow in the area. (I guess the developer finally paid up and hired someone to do a traffic study, but no one’s actually read it — and of course the BCO couldn’t be bothered with such details.)

The “parking problem” is absolutely not one of under-supply. WPB’s plan recommends metering and better managing 1,200 on-street parking spaces and working with the owners of the 2,400 off-street parking spaces within WPB to better utilize their spaces. That’s 3,600 parking spaces right here in the neighborhood — the size of an 8 1/2-block parking lot, the size of a parking garage that could fill all 65 floors of 311 S. Wacker, twice the size of the Cumberland Avenue parking garage — and none of it is more than a 12-minute walk from MN&D. There’s very little economic rationale for standalone parking garages outside large downtowns and airports, and the same economic rules hold for Bucktown: construction costs are sky-high, and the competition is practically giving it away (free or for $0.25 an hour). The developer acknowledges this, and has claimed in earlier meetings that he wanted to do something better for the neighborhood than just another mixed-use building. I naturally stated that a mixed-use building would be ideal there and that there are many other ways to really give something back to the entire neighborhood.

Here are a couple of ideas, most of which are tax-deductible:
* Spruce up a nearby park, like Wicker, Ehrler, Churchill, Park #529 (Wabansia) — or create new parks, at a Bloomingdale Trail entrance or in one of the “living room” spaces identified along Milwaukee in WPB’s plan. This could be accomplished through a donation to the appropriate park Advisory Council (or TPL, for Bloomingdale) or to the Open Space Impact Fee fund for West Town.
* Help to establish a neighborhood bike share. Six locations would cost under $500K.
* Make retail space in the building available at below market rate for creative new businesses or neighborhood arts organizations; for example, moving the (nonprofit) Around the Coyote into a storefront gallery.
* Implement intersection improvements at MN&D, consistent with the recommendations of the WPB Plan, that will significantly enhance pedestrian safety and even traffic flow.
* Adopt the Damen station.

Want to buy some swamp land?

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Not to denigrate the proud and sturdy neighborhood of Hegewisch, but this bothers me: a $28,000-per-house TIF subsidy (reported by Alby Gallun for Crain’s) to build nearly 1,000 houses in the Calumet swamps sounds like one of the worst wastes of taxpayer dollars ever. A TIF designed to bring industrial jobs back to a community slammed by de-industrialization is instead literally shoring up the sagging fortunes of some downtown developer. Said developer thinks that houses will sell for an average of $194,000 in an emptied-out neighborhood with foreclosures selling for $55,000, on the site of a trailer park that’s 80%+ vacant despite whole houses available for less than $28,000 — and just two miles from sites where the city spent funds from the same TIF to reclaim entire vacant subdivisions (apparently Everglades-style land speculation scams) for their proper use as wetland habitat.

Thank goodness that the golden age of TIF might just be coming to an end: the Central Loop TIF, “Daley’s favorite honey pot” (Greg Hinz for Crain’s), will indeed ride off into the sunset as planned this December. It’s not that TIF is a bad idea, but the city has short-sightedly used it to pay for individual development projects (for which many sources of private capital exist) and not for long-term, value-adding investments in neighborhood infrastructure (which requires public commitment).

Globe

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Among the nice things about vacationing in Canada is seeing the Globe & Mail. Two fragments from Friday’s (5 September) issue:

Marcus Gee: “For years, the LDP [Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party] has been less a political party than a machine for distributing patronage, rewarding supporters with subsidies, contracts, and other pork.” And how does this differ from the RDO?

John Ibbitson writes of the US election: “Karl Rove… got his former boss, President George W. Bush, re-elected in 2004 by persuading enough Americans that their nation was divided into two camps: Decent folks with conservative values and plenty of common sense; and dangerous, urban liberals who would impose Big Brother at home and expose the country to danger from abroad.” The choice in this election could not be clearer for America’s cities.