Category Archives: chicagoland

Socialist baseball

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Hooray! A local group, For Fans Sake, is attempting to socialize the Cubs. Well, not really, but they’re offering shares in a company that would replicate the community ownership model behind the Green Bay Packers, instead of selling the franchise to some random egomaniac billionaire. From their FAQ:

How much money can I make on this?

None.

Un-American!

EDIT: Okay, when I wrote that, I was thinking “social ownership of the means of production,” not “welfare state,” as in “corporate welfare subsidiaries to benefit billionaires” — like the wastrel governor maneuvering to buy the stadium, thereby removing a potential liability from the team’s balance sheet as its ownership shifts from one billionaire’s pocket to another.

Post-collegiate in extremis

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young and restless Originally uploaded by Payton Chung

The first set of charts, graphs, and illustrations has come back from the planners examining Wicker Park & Bucktown on behalf of we, the people of WP-B (or at least our special service area). The most astonishing finding, in my view, is here: our neighborhood’s people are defined by a stunning — indeed, almost statistically improbable — self-segregation of young people.

Nearly 52% of the population is between 20-39, compared to just 29% nationally. 45.4% even fall within that most marketer-coveted of all age groups, the 18-35s. Maybe we could make a lot of money selling sidewalk billboards.

Perhaps even more quizzically, young men significantly outnumber young women in most age brackets: 9.4% (nearly one in ten!) neighborhood residents are (like me) men in their late 20s, nearly three times the share in the American populace. It’s not even an appreciably gay neighborhood, either.

Almost all other age groups are underrepresented (relative to their national shares) in the neighborhood by about 30-50% — except for preschool aged children. Sure enough, the kids leave at school age — although not nearly to the “total” extent that is sometimes claimed by alarmists. Why, there are about as many grade-schoolers living here as 60-somethings.

(Produced by Interface Studio for Wicker Park Bucktown Special Service Area #33)

Town and country

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goat coat Originally uploaded by Payton Chung

I took a tour of Prairie Crossing last weekend [a few more photos]; here’s a photo of livestock with some houses behind. (I wasn’t aware that some people kept livestock alongside the co-op horse barn.) Not that interesting unless you know that the farmland is permanently protected, I suppose.

Some interesting figures: one homeowner estimated that his front "lawn" might have 100+ species. Compared to the site’s previous incarnation as a cornfield, the development has created an interesting human habitat (~1,000 residents, school, a few shops) while increasing biodiversity tenfold (example: 110 bird species on site vs. "10-15" before) and reducing water runoff 50-80%. Lake Aldo Leopold, a.k.a. “stormwater detention basin A,” is among the cleanest lakes in Illinois, with water clarity of 20-30 ft. The Sand Hill organic vegetable/flower/fruit farm grosses $18,000 per acre from sales via CSA and farmers markets, vs. $1,700 per acre in even the current overheated market for corn.

Leadership (and trailership)

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The most amazing thing I read last week was mayor Michael Bloomberg’s speech to a USCM meeting on climate change. Emphasis added:

Leadership is not waiting for others to act, or bowing to special interests, or making policy by polling or political calculus. And it’s not hoping that technology will rescue us down the road or forcing our children to foot the bill. Leadership is about facing facts, making hard decisions and having the independence and courage to do the right thing, even when it’s not easy or popular. We’ve all heard people say, “It’s a great idea, but for the politics.” And let me give you just one example from New York.

Last spring, as part of our PlaNYC initiative, we proposed a system of congestion pricing based on successful programs in London, Stockholm and Singapore. The plan would charge drivers $8 to enter Manhattan on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., which would help us reduce the congestion that is choking our economy, the pollution that has helped produce asthma rates that are twice the national average, and the carbon dioxide that is fueling global warming.

Now, the question is not whether we want to pay, but how do we want to pay. With an increased asthma rate? With more greenhouse gases? Wasted time? Lost business? Higher prices? Or do we charge a modest fee to encourage more people to take mass transit and use that money to expand mass transit service? When you look at it that way, the idea makes a lot of sense, but for the politics, because no one likes the idea of paying more. But being up front and honest about the costs and benefits, we’ve been able to build a coalition of supporters that includes conservatives and liberals, labor unions and businesses, and community leaders throughout the city.

There is no problem that can’t be solved if we have the courage to confront it head-on — and put progress above politics. Mayors around the country are doing it — and those in Washington can, too.

Just a few days later in Seattle, the transportation bond proposal that I referenced earlier failed — possibly because it wasn’t pro-transit enough. Chris McGann reporting in the P-I:

Though voters rejected Proposition 1, an extensive poll commissioned by the Sierra Club showed that if the transit element of the measure had appeared on the ballot alone, it would have passed.

The Sierra Club joined forces with the anti-transit crowd and campaigned against Proposition 1, believing the measure included too much freeway expansion, relied on general taxes, including the sales tax, and did not address global warming.

According to the poll, 52 percent of voters say they would have voted for the transit portion had it been presented alone… “The single largest reason [a group of voters who we would describe as pro-transit defectors] gave (for voting no) was environmental impacts like global warming,” [pollster Thomas Riehle from RT Strategies] said… 20% [of No voters] objected to Prop 1’s impact on the environment.

Meanwhile, back here under the clouds in Planet Illinois, the Tribune‘s Jon Hilkevitch notes that CTA’s facilities are falling apart.

Rail passengers aren’t spared from the ills of ancient infrastructure either. They must endure longer commutes each year as trains crawl as slowly as 5 m.p.h. through numerous “slow zones” caused by crumbling viaducts or deteriorated tracks.

In fact, the slow-zones cover about 50 miles of track, more than one-fifth of its rail network, according to the CTA.

The neglect of the rail system has also led to derailments, including one in July 2006 in which a Blue Line subway train jumped tracks held barely in place by rusted screw spikes and fastening clips…

The cost of repairing and maintaining the old buses is soaring. The CTA said it spends $16 million a year to keep the old buses in running order, more than five-fold the $3 million cost for upkeep on newer models.

Despite the clearly inefficient use of public money, the failure to renew transit infrastructure has received much less attention among politicians and other decision-makers than the prospect of hundreds of thousands of commuters losing their bus routes to service cuts.

Even if the current transit operating crisis were resolved, the system would remain under siege until a funding stream is established to overhaul and replace aging equipment, transit officials said…

Increasing amounts of the CTA’s capital budget — more than a combined $150 million since 2003 — have been diverted to operations to help balance annual budgets and reduce the threatened service cuts and fare increases under the CTA’s doomsday plans…

Without the state launching a successor to Illinois FIRST, non-federal capital funding to the CTA during the next five years is projected at one-tenth the level in 2002, according to CTA budget documents.

Shoring up, modernizing and expanding the mass transit system in the six-county Chicago metropolitan area comes with a breathtaking price tag that exceeds $10 billion during the next five years for CTA, Metra and Pace combined, according to the Regional Transportation Authority…

“My concern is Springfield passing the kind of capital bill they are talking about — totaling only $425 million for all three transit agencies — and that there won’t be discussions about another capital bill for years,” [CTA chair Carole] Brown said. “It would just put us in such a difficult position.”

Of course, the city’s half-billion dollar annual take from TIF revenue — the same buzz-worthy “value capture” revenue stream that’s building new rail systems in Atlanta, Portland, and NoVa — would be an ideal source of funds to seed the system renewal that CTA so badly needs. After all, improving transit is an almost sure-fire way to raise property values. (I’d point out that many of the exceptions listed there, as in Miami, San Jose, and San Diego, placed rail through low-value industrial corridors in the interest of reducing ROW acquisition costs.)

Yet it’s going to take a whole lot more money to get this done. NYC Transit spent nearly $20 billion in the 1980s on renewing its capital stock, about $40 billion in today’s dollars; upgrading the signals to allow automated operations just on the L line cost nearly $300 million. And yet — the governor, and even more shockingly Emil Jones, would rather pick the pockets of Chicago’s math-challenged to gold-plate a bunch of empty Downstate roads.

Bad timing

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Man, it’s just like we stepped into a time machine and went back to the 1960s all over again! Cars and trucks are just gliding across acres and acres of shiny new concrete, all around the Chicago area!

“The 12½-mile southern extension of the North-South Tollway (Interstate Highway 355) cuts through prairies, forests, farms and wetlands close to where residential subdivisions, office parks, warehouses and malls are rapidly being developed. The $730 million tollway extension runs three lanes in each direction through more than a dozen communities from Bolingbrook to New Lenox and connects Interstate Highways 55 and 80… Daily traffic projections suggest that about 125,000 vehicles a day will use the I-355 extension when it opens next month, the toll authority said.” — Jon Hilkevitch, Tribune, 22 Oct.

Soon-to-be-bulldozed prairies, forests, farms and wetlands. Yay, progress!

“All lanes on the Dan Ryan Expy. should be open — ending two years of construction on the Chicago area’s busiest expressway, state officials announced Thursday… mainline construction on the $975 million project will be wrapping up a few days ahead of IDOT’s Oct. 31 deadline.” — Monifa Thomas, Sun-Times, 26 Oct.

Huzzah! Oh well, it was $425,000,000 over budget. Whoops. Well, I’m sure the extra money was just sitting in a drawer somewhere. Okay, make that a cash room, the size of a racquetball court,(1) 20′ x 40′ x 20′, filled within 19″ of its brim with dollar bills.(2)

Oh. But wait, there’s this:

Calling Illinois “the poster child for neglect…” “It seems that the state and the governor are walking away from a minimal responsibility to maintain an existing system, let alone dramatically enhance it,” [U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.)] said in response to testimony at the hearing about rusting CTA trains and buses, crumbling viaducts, and miles of streets and dozens of bridges in disrepair in the Chicago area. — Hilkevitch, Trib, today

Oh well. That optimistic, forward-looking, shiny-new-things feeling was nice while it lasted, or maybe it would be nice if I drove. Or maybe lived in Houston — Houston! No zoning! — which at current rates will pass Chicago in population by mid-century, anyways.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority board voted Thursday to use light rail on all five of its next rapid transit lines as required in a 2003 referendum… In 2005, residents and elected officials along the planned North, East End, Southeast and Uptown routes were dismayed to learn that Metro analysis showed the cost would be too high and ridership too low to justify federal funding for rail… [T]he five new lines would increase the number of rail cars needed to about 100 from the present 18. Metro officials hope to have all five of the planned light rail lines completed in late 2012. — Rad Sallee reporting in the Houston Chronicle

Man, it’s sad when you manage to get upstaged by Texas — and by Texas government and Texas voters, no less.

Anyhow, next subject. Let’s look at demonstration of why Fix It First is almost always a good idea: a bit of preventive maintenance cost much less than a lot of comprehensive reconstruction; fixing existing infrastructure leverages prior generations’ wise investments; and it puts money into places where people already live and work — we’ve already shaped our lives around what’s there.

The Block 37 “superstation” is $100, $150M over its $200M budget; it’s just the first part of a project that will cost a billion dollars, serve about 5,000 riders a day,(3) and demolish countless historic neighborhoods along the Blue Line.(4) (And which, by the way, will offer no operational advantages to the existing system — the Blue Line and Red Line are already connected, albeit indirectly.) Let’s say that the 5,000 riders a day served by this earn 50% more than average; at a 13.5 minute time savings, that’s $24,605 in time saved daily.

Just the cost overrun on Block 37 could more than pay for the entire $105.7 million Slow Zone Elimination Project on the Red and Blue lines.(5) Assuming 10 minute travel time savings for 196,269 weekday passengers(6) and a time cost of $14.60 an hour (from TTI), that project will save the region’s economy $477,587 — nearly half a million dollars — in time every day. Plus, it will be done in 2008.

1. A visual aid, courtesy Davina at the University of South Florida: (Flickr)

2. Visualization calculated from here.

3. The 2006 business plan projects 1.68M riders a year in 2010 at $10/ticket. Assuming weekend ridership is 50% of weekday ridership, that works out to 5,385 riders a day.

4. Express trains require passing tracks, in particular at stations, where otherwise the express trains would be stuck behind locals. Where are Blue Line stations located? Many in the Kennedy median, and oh no, we can’t possibly remove any road ROW. Some in subways, which are frightfully expensive to tunnel — and the rest, like my own station at Damen, are elevated above and embedded into lovely, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. Guess we’ll have to demolish those, then. From the business plan, page 20:

Two 3,000-foot passing tracks would be constructed, one southbound at California/Milwaukee, the other northbound at Damen/Milwaukee. These will allow the express train to pass a stopped Blue Line local train. In addition, the two stations would be reconstructed to accommodate this additional track. At Damen/Milwaukee, the station reconstruction is also planned to eliminate the “jog” in the mainline tracks at North Avenue.

Oh, that pesky Wicker Park. Always in the way.

5. This project is funded, as I understand it, from bonds levied on the assumption that federal funds will be granted, assuming that state matching funds comes through — a double assumption)

6. I’ve already achieved a 10 minute savings, thanks to the completed Milwaukee subway improvements; Kennedy/O’Hare passengers will save nearly 30 minutes apiece, Red Line riders somewhat less.

Last week’s hackneyed analysis was criticized in some quarters for not looking at the particular areas in which service would be cut. I’ve isolated 33 bus routes to be cut which terminate downtown (not counting the impact of cutting connecting services out in the neighborhoods, notably a number of Northwest Side and Evanston routes connecting to the Blue and Purple Lines, respectively); these carried 134,043 passengers on an average September 2006 weekday. Compare that to the 287,000 cars [or 574,000 car trips] entering downtown on an average weekday.

20 of these routes serve either the north lakefront or as downtown circulators — predominantly White, higher-income areas. These routes carried 64,905 passengers on an average weekday. Assume 75% of trips are for work (reasonable, since many run only at rush hours and Sunday boardings are 25% of weekday boardings); that’s 25,962 commuters a day. Add in 60% of the riders on the south/west side (but still downtown-serving; Sunday/weekday ratio 31%) routes to be cut, for 45,081 downtown commuters who are dependent bus routes that will soon expire. Let’s say that 20% of them (9,016) get fed up with the commute and decide to leave the downtown workforce — far lower than the 61% of CTA-riding City Colleges students who will have to end or curtail their classwork due to the cuts.

Assuming the citywide median wage of $36,600, that’s $330 million in payroll gone: nearly $36 million in state and local taxes (assuming 10.8%). And at 220 square feet per employee, that’s negative net absorption of two million square feet of office space — almost enough to vacate AT&T, 311 S. Wacker, or indeed any skyscraper downtown except the Mart, Aon, or Sears.

This would be an initial impact, of course. Over the long run, reducing transportation capacity into the region’s primary job center will make it difficult for employers to justify the significant rent premiums they pay for downtown space — or even to locate in this region. Transit moves half of all people going into downtown, and without those people — or even without a large fraction thereof — countless businesses will see their margins (made on the last few sales, the last few employees) vanish.

Estimates by the Partnership for New York City of the economic development impacts of the Second Avenue Subway say that new jobs and new development capacity — indirect benefits of the project — will amount to 50% more positive economic impact than the already huge direct benefits in transportation productivity (time savings, increased ridership). Applying that figure to the recent Metropolis 2020 study — which showed a 21% return on investment for transit system investments, counting only time savings (increasing to as much as 61% when such investments are leveraged with transit supportive land use) results in ROIs of 53-153%. Not only is this state leaving that huge fortune on the table, but we risk spiraling down a vicious vortex as the process works in reverse: turning time saved into time wasted, job growth and new development into decline and abandonment.

CTA’s bus cuts in perspective

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The 84 bus routes to be cut by CTA carried 308,262 passengers on an average September 2006 weekday. At an average vehicle occupancy (AVO) of 1.2,* that’s equivalent to 256,885 cars a day of capacity. Compare to these local roads’ AADTs (trucks excluded):

I-90 at Fullerton: 244,400
I-290 at Ashland: 189,700
Lake Shore Drive at Diversey: 150,650
Lake Shore Drive at Jackson: 131,700
I-55 at Damen: 131,500
and, just for kicks, let’s look at how many people some other transportation facilities nationwide carry on an average weekday:
Bay Area Rapid Transit: 365,300 (5th largest heavy rail system in country)
Miami-Dade Transit: 347,400
Portland Tri-Met: 325,400
Metra: 310,800 (2nd largest commuter rail system in country)
Seattle’s King County Transit buses: 294,500
Denver RTD: 267,400
San Diego MTS, Trolley, and Transit: 265,200
Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro Transit: 241,700
St. Louis Bi-State Development Agency: 186,200
All Illinois transit services outside Chicago or St. Louis: 58,500
I-35W bridge over Mississippi, Brooklyn Bridge: 140,000 AADT (incl. trucks)
Golden Gate Bridge: 106,400 ADT

If the Kennedy bridge at Fullerton collapsed, or if terrorists took out both I-55 and Lake Shore Drive, or if Metra just up and died, how would this state’s government react? I bet they wouldn’t spend years squabbling, dilly-dallying, grand-standing, and pork-padding. Just because buses aren’t sexy doesn’t mean that they don’t serve the honest purpose of moving people around the transportation network — or that, when they’re cut, that people won’t be as hurt as if other modes experienced similar capacity reductions.

Sure, people will adapt to bus route elimination (reducing trips, taking alternate routes and modes), but they’d adapt to a freeway shutdown, too.

(And to answer some conspiracy theories about which routes were to be cut, even high-ridership routes were cut if they roughly parallel other services. Rush-hour shuttles — regardless of how packed — are not very cost-effective, as they require additional equipment and employees at peak hours when the service is already stretched to its limits. And CTA’s legal mandate doesn’t require it to cover Evanston.)

I might try to dig up some numbers on how much money the “casino capital bill” plans to siphon from Chicago to waste on largely unused Downstate roads — compared to the number of people who will be affected by shutting down transit services. From the Sun-Times’ Wednesday editorial:

Lawmakers have proposed just $425 million for mass transit for the entire state, and that’s dependent on getting casinos. Even under the proposed plan, we’re spending only $1 on transit for every $11 we spend on roads. Three years ago, it was $1 out of every $3.

Somehow Springfield doesn’t grasp that mass transit moves Chicago’s economy, and Chicago’s economy drives the state. Our leaders shouldn’t wait for the buses and trains to stop running before they pay attention.

* A local AVO of 1.2 is suggested by 2001 CATS observations of 1.1 to 1.25 AVO in a study of vehicles entering I-94. ADTs and truck ADTs from IDOT. Metra ridership from 2007 budget book. Other cities’ transit ridership from APTA 2Q 2007 report. Golden Gate Bridge is twice average daily toll counts from 2005, from MTC.

Woebegone budgets, &c.

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A wrap-up of items from my latest week away:

* Paul Merrion in Crain’s points out that “intense opposition to [refinery] expansion plans following BP America Inc.’s scuttled proposal to dump more waste in Lake Michigan… raise the prospect of even higher prices at the pump if pollution-control technology makes refinery expansion unfeasible.” Well, duh (and that’s a good thing, IMO), but I wonder if all those drivers signing petitions against BP’s expansion realized that they, too, are part of the problem. Probably not, of course.

* Greg Hinz pre-emptively rued this week of fiscal crisis:

the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) will unveil a proposed 2008 budget that, unlike prior versions, almost certainly will be the real Doomsday thing… Mayor Richard M. Daley on Wednesday will unveil his own heaping helping of woes: service cuts and tax hikes that insiders have warned may include a stunning $100-million hike in the property tax… the Cook County Board considers an increase of 2% in the county’s sales tax proposed by county President Todd Stroger… as Springfield squabbles over a proposed property-tax hike that threatens to hit city homeowners with what County Assessor Jim Houlihan says would be an average 40% increase on bills due later this year… “It’s an all-out race to see who can raise taxes higher, faster than others in the race,” says Gerald Roper, president and CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.

My favorite: city water and sewer rates will go up by $65 million. This, in a city that (this never fails to astonish people elsewhere) has no water meters. That’s right, I of the paused showers and ultra-efficient dishwasher (hey, Californian parents will do that to you) pay the same rate as someone who runs the sprinkler 24/7. Maybe the infamously corrupt water department might consider adding meters, and charging people per use — instead of regressively raising rates across the board?

* Sadly, two fascinating trial balloons that went up last week amidst the tax-hike frenzy got shot down really fast. A tax on parking spaces, apparently floated by the governor (and discussed here last year), appears to have disappeared into the muck. A city gas tax hike, and parking-meter increase, disappeared between last week’s rumors and this week’s proposal. Not that Fran Spielman didn’t get a chance to get a great quote about it:

Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) said she’s all for doubling the gas tax, but only if the Chicago Transit Authority gets the money. “I don’t think we’re going to get the help we need from Springfield. (CTA funding is) a critical issue for me, and I don’t see anybody paying attention,” she said.

* Andrea Johnson in LiveScience reports on an aerial survey by Bryan Pijanowski of Purdue University that found three surface parking spaces for each licensed driver around Purdue. Not quite the seven I’ve seen quoted elsewhere (where’d that come from?), but then again this didn’t count residential garages, on-street parking, or structures of any sort. However, the fact that such a survey was possible

* I scribbled this down about Interbike in Las Vegas, over on Flyertalk:

I’m (hardly) old enough to remember CABDA, the last of the regional bicycle trade shows (and right next to the UA hub at ORD!). Eurobike Portland sounded interesting while talk of that lasted, and with the industry’s recent growth perhaps a competitor could’ve survived.

My employer treats our convention as an honor bestowed upon cities that meet our standards, since our attendees expect to learn from the cities they visit. APBP, Thunderhead, and other bike groups do the same. Granted, I see everything through the lens of the built environment, but wouldn’t it be cool if bike dealers could walk out of the convention center and see… people bicycling, thanks to good facilities and a healthy local bike culture? Maybe then they’d start to get excited about the changes possible in the communities outside their own shops — a great way to build overall demand and sales.

* A photo of me by Hayley Graham accompanied this Chicago Journal article about the Pilsen Park(ing) Day action.

* Counterintuitive: facing losses in 2005, CalTrain (which has a unique combination of an hourly pay structure and nearly equally balanced loads) worked its way out of a deficit by expanding service, particularly faster express trains. Fewer stops = more runs with the same crews. A virtuous-cycle, revenue-growth approach to budgeting, rather than the vicious-cycle, cost-cutting approach — they’d be easier if only transit captured more of the value it created, of course.

* NYC’s public-service bike safety ads carry the simplest, stupidest, but most necessary message possible: Look.

* I typically dislike freeway-median transit — it inhibits the potential for pedestrian friendly, transit oriented development, since the stations are necessarily embedded amidst stinky cars — but I could get behind Mark Oberholzer’s idea:

integrating turbines into the barriers between highway lanes that would harness the wind generated by passing cars to create energy. “Opposing streams of traffic create really incredible potential in terms of a guaranteed wind source,” Oberholzer says… “The technical problems of tying into the grid and managing the flow made me think of putting the power to a different use,” he says. “I’m pretty excited about integrating a subway or light-rail train right where the barrier is. I love the idea of siphoning off electricity generated by private transportation to run public transportation.”

Sweep

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I’ll be away for a week or so (some of it in Toronto, where I’ll get to attend some workshops preceding Walk21), so…

* John McCarron writes in the Trib about a new book by UIC’s John McDonald about the fortunes of American cities:

The good news for Chicagoans is that, while we fell as hard as any of the big cities on McDonald’s list during the ’60s and ’70s, we turned it around during the late 1980s and mounted the most dramatic comeback of all.

But we had a long way to come back. Chicago lost 17 percent of its population between 1970 and 1990. During that time, the poverty rate jumped to 21.6 percent from 14.4 percent. The average annual family income, measured in 2005 dollars, dove to $48,500 from $54,300. The murder rate jumped by 30 percent and the percentage of single-parent households nearly doubled to 41 percent from 22 percent.

Then came the turnaround. “The reversal for Chicago and the region during the ’90s was truly remarkable,” McDonald said in an interview. “Far more so than was the case for New York and the other Northeastern cities.”

Of course, that turnaround cannot be taken for granted; underinvestment in infrastructure, in particular, is a problem. Hence…

* “Illinois Works,” according to the Southtown, will consist mostly of accelerating current IDOT highway plans. The Trib reports:

The legislation approved by the Senate would provide $425 million in capital funding to the Regional Transportation Authority. The CTA would receive 55 percent under the current formula. Brown said the $234 million the CTA would receive — roughly what the agency gets now — is far short of what’s needed. CTA officials said almost $6 billion in maintenance is required to put the bus and train systems in good repair.

Yes, that means just 8% of this massive capital package will fund transit in the Chicago region. The many Chicago senators who voted for this bill should be ashamed.

* The 26 September NYT included a feature on Portland’s food scene, citing its affordability and easy access to farms. Farmland at the urban fringe has value far beyond its aesthetic interest as green space, and the economic value has a multiplier inside the city as well. I’m sure that the Cato Institue doesn’t care, anyways.

* Leadership is about “follow me” not “after you.” — Tom Friedman on U.S. climate policy, responding to the insistent whine of “after you, China.” As I’ve said before, “Until you’ve taken constructive, positive action, you forfeit any right to waste my time with whines and complaints.”

Passages

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One of the questions that our SSA commission has been wrestling with has been what to do with Mautene Court, a tiny, overlooked plaza just northwest of Milwaukee and Ashland. It was a stub street turned into a failed plaza, but construction all around it led to its recent closure. I’ve found a few examples of interesting precedents for this kind of “passage park”; most connect two streets, and Mautene has the potential to connect through the lot behind it to rapidly growing Division Street.

* Liberties Walk in Philadelphia. [My photos.] “Part of real estate developer Bart Blatstein’s plan to build an upscale artists’ community on his large property holdings in Northern Liberties. Blatstein designed [it] to be a mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented retail and residential corridor that would fit with the neighborhood’s architecture.” [PlanPhilly] A semi-critical article from when the plan was announced: [City Paper]

* Chess Park in Glendale, Calif. [Photos from Flickr] “The park is located in a previously underused passageway which runs between two retail shops in the Brand Boulevard business district, connecting a city parking structure to the bustling streetfront shops, restaurants, and theaters on Brand Boulevard, Glendale’s main thoroughfare.” [ASLA 2006 Awards]. An hour-by-hour photoessay about a day in the park’s life is in the September 2007 issue of Landscape Architecture magazine.

* Fruitvale Transit Village in Oakland, Calif. [My photos.] This one’s a little more problematic, a handsome two-block pedestrian street developed by a local CDC that was a bit too ambitious with the retail. Read more in New Urban News.

* The Distillery District in Toronto [photos] [previous post on business mix] is a historic industrial complex that has been renovated into an immensely popular, pedestrian-only arts and entertainment village, with galleries, shops, restaurants and cafés, performance and creative spaces, and now (after many years of development) high- and mid-rise condos. (Québec also has a number of lively pedestrian malls despite the bitter cold, like art-stall-lined Rue de Petit Champlain in Québec or restaurant-lined Rue Prince-Arthur in Montréal’s Plateau: [photo 1] [photo 2] [photo 3])

* In a more socioeconomically comparable neighborhood, Mozaic in swanky Uptown Minneapolis is a 2.5 acre site being developed as retail, entertainment, condos, and a boutique hotel in mid- to high-rises surrounding a half-acre plaza with “interactive fire and water garden.” [Flashy official site]

Another idea that’s been brewing, in a somewhat similar vein, is the notion of building a public market in the neighborhood — a citywide destination that promotes local entrepreneurs. I’ve always been a fan of a good market, but most of the famous ones are the cavernous, established downtown markets. So, I was surprised to find a 40-stall public market squeezed into about 10,000 sq. ft. in Viroqua, Wis., population 5,000. It’s not incredibly sophisticated, but it’s a great venue for entrepreneurs and a smart reuse of an existing space — an auto dealership with wood-truss vaulted ceilings, opened in 2004. Midtown Global Market is a better-capitalized new public market housing 60 larger vendors within an old Sears in South Minneapolis. Unlike those areas, though, Wicker Park has the added advantage of being termed as one of the higher-income “food deserts” in recent research (see presentation from Mari Gallagher here) — a neighborhood comparatively underserved by grocery stores.

Perhaps most interesting to this neighborhood is the Epicurious Garden [my photos], a stylish new food hall (think linear food court, or tiny and chichi public market), with ten small foodie businesses, recently opened a few doors from Chez Panisse in Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto. Most of the vendors face a short passage and offer takeout; around the edges are a wine bar, a classical tea house, a small garden (which still manages several seating options), and a cooking school.

Jobs on the line

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Francine Knowles at the Sun-Times writes (kinda) about the angle I’ve been pushing: transit cuts will devastate downtown’s accessibility, and thus its economy.

If the stalemate isn’t satisfactorily resolved quickly, employers and workers will be hurt, warns Jerry Roper, president and CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.

“A lot of people are going to suffer,” he said…

If the changes do go through, low-income workers would be hard hit, contends Aaron Gellman, professor at Northwestern University’s Transportation Center. If the cuts and fare increases are short-lived, workers will make temporary adjustments and find alternative routes, he said. But if they become permanent, that could restrict the supply of workers in certain locations, he said. Employers might be compelled to help subsidize workers transportation costs, he said.

More employers could consider relocating to the suburbs, said John Challenger, CEO of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas. Telecommuting probably would expand, he said.

I’ve gathered that Challenger is rather well respected in the HR field.

spend and tax

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The federal “free parking” subsidy makes the front page of NYT.com with an article by William Neuman. The new spin on this: many of his interviewees are HR folks, who despite not being transportation geeks also seem to understand the silliness of this tax break.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” [Gerard Bridi, president of WiredCommute, a corporate benefits provider in Wellesley Hills, Mass.] said. “On the one hand you want to reduce congestion by encouraging people to take public transportation. On the other hand you give people who drive” a tax break… while the [tax-free] transit program is used by more than two million people nationally, according to estimates by benefit providers, the benefit is capped at $110 a month, giving transit riders a lower tax savings.

And no savings for those who walk or bike, of course — and, since it works like an income tax deduction, it (like all deductions) favors those in higher brackets who least need tax breaks. Wonderful!

“In general the efforts in this regard are at cross purposes,” said Jon Kessler, the chairman of WageWorks, a corporate benefits company in California. He said that while the tax break for parking helps promote jobs in cities by making it cheaper to get to work, it does nothing to reduce traffic. “People,” he said, “are trying to accomplish different things…” He estimated that because parking costs vary across the country and not everyone uses the full amount, the tax savings nationwide from the parking benefit add up to about $150 million each year.

On another topic, the last city of Chicago budget I read thoroughly was the 2004 proposed budget. Just out of curiosity, I compared that document’s 2003 figures to the new 2008 projections:

2003 actual: $4.719B total, $2.550B corporate fund
2003 inflated to 2007 using CPI: $5.342B total, $2.887B corporate
2007: $5.669B total (budgeted), $3.080B corporate (projected as of 30 July)
(2008 corporate fund expenditures are forecast at 6% above 2007)

The total budget is growing at a rate 52.5% above inflation and the corporate budget at a rate 57.3% above inflation. It might be interesting to compare these numbers to other large, slow-growth cities.

It’s too bad that the property tax figures are reported so poorly on both tax bills and in the budget books, although perhaps the county treasurer would have overall figures. I know that pension and health costs, which are the biggest users of the property tax, have increased substantially, but it’s hard to justify such a sustained increase over the general inflation rate when services have not appreciably improved.

City food policy advances

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DPD has posted Chicago: Eat Local, Live Healthy, a food policy document that outlines solid reasons why local food growing and processing are big economic opportunities for the city and region — and some broad (if vague) steps towards both increasing the size of the local food market and tapping into its potential.

(Interestingly, they acknowledge Environment, MOSE, Public Health, and Aging on the credits page as well.)

Page 4 has an interesting map, showing that both West Town and Logan Square have more than 45,000 residents per supermarket — shocking, since only 10,000 residents are needed to keep one afloat. Page 13 also confirms my suspicions: even though northern Illinois and eastern Iowa have some of the richest farmland known to mankind, high-value vegetable production in the Midwest is really focused on meeting demand from Madison and the Twin Cities (and on exporting asparagus from Michigan’s western shore). Yes, that’s right: more high-value produce is grown for the Madison market, population 0.5 million, than for the Chicago market, population 9 million.

Another interesting map (available from Chicago magazine but created at UIC UTC) shows that yes, thin is in: BMI by ZIP code (as reported to the DMV) is pretty well correlated with education. The north side is skinnier.

Among the implementation tools that the report cites is a “farm forager,” a market-maker who connects farmers to markets. The job is described over at GCM’s page:

For this purpose, GCM and MOSE are funding a “farm forager” to assess, find and support sustainable farmers, increasing the fresh locally-produced foods coming into the city… This innovative partnership presented the first annual 2006 Farmer Workshop in February for 175 attending farmers to help them be more successful in the Chicago marketplace… will build the infrastructure that’s needed to increase the diversity and amount of locally produced food coming into the city of Chicago and the region.

Farmers’ markets are a wonderful thing, but sometimes good old-fashioned division of labor can be even better. Re-creating the human infrastructure of the supply chain leading directly from farm to table will take time, effort, and “new” business models.