WBEZ | Transportation

Bus rapid transit to ‘maximize potential’ of Ashland Avenue

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 08:14:00 -0500

The first phase of a closely watched Chicago bus project would “maximize street potential” along more than five miles of Ashland Avenue for about $50 million, city officials announced Friday.

The project would establish bus rapid transit (BRT) along that congested artery from 31st Place to Cortland Avenue. The city will study possible extensions stretching as far south as 95th Street and as far north as Irving Park Road, according to a statement from the Chicago Transit Authority and the Chicago Department of Transportation.

“Bus rapid transit is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to expand and modernize our city’s transit network for the 21st century,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in the statement. “We will work with our local communities to best determine how to maximize the positive impacts BRT would provide to riders, while boosting local economic development and improving quality of life for all city residents.”

WBEZ revealed the Ashland route and the project’s key design elements in January. The buses would have a lane to themselves on both sides of a landscaped median. Traffic signals at some intersections would favor the buses. Passengers would board from platforms a half-mile apart. Parking would remain on both sides.

The statement says the design would “allow the potential” for off-board fare collection, a feature that averts delays from collecting fares in bus doorways. A new CTA video (above) shows that payment taking place at kiosks on station platforms.

Cars and trucks would have just one lane in each direction — a plan that has sparked opposition from some business groups along the route. City officials have responded that the project would slow automobiles and trucks just slightly and speed up bus service more than 80 percent during peak hours.

Transit experts say banning turns across bus lanes is the key BRT intersection treatment. The video renderings of reconfigured Ashland intersections do not show any left-turn lanes.

CTA spokeswoman Lambrini Lukidis confirmed Friday that the Ashland project will eliminate left turns from the avenue at some intersections. She said her agency is embarking on a study to help determine which ones.

The elimination of turns is another step that worries the business groups.

“Getting trucks around, where they might turn left into a loading dock now, they’ll have to obviously make three [right turns] to be able to do that,” said Benjamin Spies, a spokesman for the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago, which represents 430 member businesses in the Kinzie Industrial Corridor. “They’re concerned about what this would do to freight traffic.”

The Emanuel administration was also considering Western Avenue for the BRT line but has put that possibility on the back burner.

The initial Ashland phase, creating a 5.3-mile leg of the BRT route, would link several CTA and Metra lines. It would also improve transit service to the University of Illinois at Chicago, Malcolm X College, the United Center and a cluster of hospitals within the Illinois Medical District.

“One of the things that all of the hospitals talk to us about is a lack of parking,” Warren Ribley, the district’s executive director, said at a downtown roundtable promoting the BRT project. “They all have parking decks that are full. If you drive along Harrison or Congress on any given day, you can’t find a parking spot.”

“Public transportation is critical to the growth of the medical district,” Ribley said. “There is going to be growth. That’s why this is such an important proposal for us.”

Neighborhoods along the planned initial route include Bucktown, Noble Square, East Village, West Town, University Village and Pilsen. The CTA’s No. 9 bus, which runs on Ashland, in 2012 had 10 million boardings, the most of any Chicago route that year, according to the city.

The city’s statement says CHA and CDOT will “begin working with local stakeholders on developing a plan” for Ashland.

The project has potential to outshine a bus line in Cleveland, Ohio, that transit experts consider the most advanced BRT system in the United States. The Cleveland line includes 4.3 miles of dedicated bus lanes but also some features that slow down the service. Those include tightly spaced stations — about four per mile — and turns across the busway.

Ashland would not stack up to BRT lines in several other countries. The world’s most advanced bus system is TransMilenio in Bogotá, Colombia. That Andean city segregates 65 miles of busways from traffic using physical barriers and grade separations.

Chicago has studied BRT options in the Ashland and Western corridor using a $1.6 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The Emanuel administration estimates that the project would cost about $10 million per mile. Lukidis, the CTA spokeswoman, said the city would count on further FTA funding for some of the Ashland construction.

Chicago is planning another BRT project in a 1.1-mile downtown corridor between Union Station and Millennium Park. The project, managed by CDOT, will include a new bus terminal next to the train station. A CDOT spokesman says the city is aiming to finalize the route design this December and finish construction by November 2014. The project’s funding includes $24.7 million from the FTA and $7.3 million in Chicago tax increment financing.

As the city unveiled the Ashland design elements, Emanuel prepared to join former President Bill Clinton at a Friday meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. Emanuel’s office described the topic as “innovative and cost-effective ways for cities to invest in local projects.”

Chip Mitchell is WBEZ’s West Side bureau reporter. Follow him on Twitter @ChipMitchell1 and @WBEZoutloud, and connect with him through Facebook and LinkedIn.

With no rules of the road, Chicago’s pedicabs thrive

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:25:00 -0500

As winter slowly melts into spring, you'll see them around Chicago with greater frequency. Hanging around after Bulls games and theater performances, armed with heated blankets and bicycle bells. More than a few showed up outside Wrigley Field at the Cubs home opener on Monday. With warm weather on the way, not to mention baseball games and endless music festivals, Chicago’s pedicabs are ready to take over the streets again.

The giant tricycles with room for two in the back, have become a fixture in Chicago over the last few summers. It’s not just the flat terrain and lazy tourists. Unlike other major metropolises, Chicago has yet to pass any ordinance regulating pedicabs. That means there are no rules on the books about where they can go, what they can charge, or how to make them safe.

Those non-existent rules are a mixed bag according to the pedicabbers themselves. Some worry it could lead to lax safety standards and inconsistent fare pricing, which only hurts their reputation. Yet that same freedom from regulation, others argue, is why the industry is doing so well in Chicago.

To learn what this means for pedicabs and passengers alike, I decided to go for a ride. Darren Hilton, who has been a bike messenger and pedicab driver for fifteen years, picked me up one recent afternoon in his yellow pedicab at Navy Pier. Except, he couldn’t actually pick me up on the pier where WBEZ is located. Apparently, pedicabs aren’t allowed there according to the Chicago Parks District. It’s one of the few hard and fast rules for pedicabs in Chicago.

Darren, who has long dreads, and wore a black silk shirt with a red dragon on the back, knows those rules (or lack thereof) better than most. He also has a keen appreciation for his pedicabs’ origins.

“I like rickshaw, because of the ethnic connotation,” Darren told me, “Rickshaw is Japanese from jinrikisha which means human power. So a ballpoint pen is a jinrikisha. A hairbrush is a jinrikisha. Human powered.”

My human-powered transportation first headed north toward Water Tower Place and the Magnificent Mile, a typical route for the tourists who make up the majority of the pedicab driver’s customer base. Pedicabs are perfect for short distance trips, like moving party goers from bar to bar. But Darren has hopes that one day, pedicabs will be seen less as a tourist activity and more as a viable industry. But for that to happen, he says, there have to be regulations, especially when it comes to price.

Because there are no rules regulating what pedicab drivers can charge, it’s much easier to gouge prices in Chicago than in other cities. Pedicabbers who live in the city say some out-of-towners come to Chicago for the summer months and charge exorbitant prices and give the industry a bad name. And even well-meaning drivers say their rates can change based on weather, terrain, and the weight of the load - not to mention, how much they like the customer. In New York, pedicabbers charge by the minute. Darren says having regulations in place would help make the industry more reliable, and therefore more vibrant.

Chicago has had two shots at a pedicab ordinance before, neither of which made it through City Council. The biggest point of contention for the pro-pedicab interests was a restriction that would prevent pedicabs from operating in the Loop during rush hour. Some say the cabs contribute to gridlock, but Darren says especially with the help of protected bike lanes, pedicabs actually move faster than cars and can help commuters get to their destination more directly. “It’s all about maneuverability,” he says.

But as we headed south over the Michigan Avenue bridge, where honking cars and speeding busses grew increasingly closer, I asked Darren how he was sure that we were safe.

“It’s not been an industry that’s been as internally regulated as it could have been,” he said, “As a customer, you don’t know the difference between something that looks sound, and something that is.”

Most garages that rent pedicabs require insurance that protects passengers, but it’s not mandated citywide, and the drivers are rarely protected. Darren says he’s only ever heard of one pedicab injury in which a car was involved, and the Chicago Police Department say they don’t keep a record of pedicab related accidents.

The police and pedicabbers primarily interact — and clash — over traffic laws. There are a lot of laws that are hard to enforce for pedicabs, which tends to make for fractious relationships, says Darren. “They just make it up. They’re not bad guys, but there’s no book. That’s the thing. And they’re responsible for their beat. But they can’t enforce something that just doesn’t exist.”

Natalie Moberg is a bike messenger and pedicab driver who loves the freedom of being an independent contractor. During the summer, she and her fellow cab drivers make most of their money picking up Cubs fans after games at Wrigley Field.

“Most officers like us. We get the drunk people out of the stadium area. We get ‘em gone,” says Moberg.

But one day last August, Natalie learned what happens when the rules are left up in the air. She says she was waiting with other pedicabbers outside Wrigley Field, when a police officer drove up and confronted them.

“Officer Healy drives up, he gets out of his vehicle and says we can’t be on the street there, and I say, well, where would you like us to go, and he says, on the sidewalk.”

Natalie says that didn’t make any sense, since not even bicycles are allowed on sidewalks.

“So, he’s starts spouting out how like it’s all listed at the police station and I interrupted him and, I asked wait wait, there’s regulations? There’s no regulations in the city of Chicago.’”

Natalie says that, although she was arrested, the charges were dropped when the officer failed to appear in court. The judge, she added, was confused about whether it was a car or a bike that had been impounded. Natalie is waiting until she gets a drivers license to return to pedicabbing, which is something the garage she leases from wants her to have for insurance purposes.

Despite her run-in with the cops, Natalie isn’t ready to support certain regulations. “I think that would kill the spirit of the industry in Chicago. We’re the Wild West, and overall,” she says, “it seems like more of a headache.”

But Chicago transit experts say, while regulations might be a pain, they’re important to help build a diverse transit system in which people have options for how to get around. Joe Schwietermann, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul, says pedicabs are, “part of the explosion of innovation we're seeing in transportation, a lot of creative solutions to get people around.” He says pedicabs are an especially promising solution for traveling short-to-medium distances in dense urban environments.

But Schwietermann also has concerns about over-regulating the budding pedicab industry.

"It’s interesting how when things sound really good in Chicago you put it in the meat grinder of city hall, and something else come out," he says, "and I think that’s the big risk here.”

Schwietermann points to last year’s food truck ordinance as an example. He believes the City Council's regulations for mobile food vendors were too strict and thus hurt the growth of an industry that has flourished in other cities. (Check out WBEZ's coverage of the food truck regulations here.)

As for the pedicabs, City Hall says there are a number of interested parties — pedicab garage owners, motor vehicle cab owners, aldermen, and more — at work on an ordinance, but nobody could say for sure what it might include, or when it will be announced. So for now, pedicabbers like Darren Hilton are making it up as they go along.

"We’re not bad people, we’re young. We’re 5 year-old dictators. Whatever we say goes. We don’t realize the repercussions of our actions," Darren says. But in terms of building a long-term, stable industry with a reputation as fair business operators, he adds, "It always comes back to us, whatever we’ve done."

As we headed back toward Navy Pier from Ogilvie Station, we breezed by cars and taxi cabs stuck in rush hour traffic, most of whom were presumably trying to get onto trains and out of the city. Darren says it's a prime example of a profitable niche that pedicabs could fill.

"All these people you see right here are potential customers, but the cabs are full. You can’t get a cab coming this way. And then if you get in a cab, you’re sitting there," he says. "It’s not the same as being where you want to be. You need maneuverability."

If some of the aldermen who want to restrict Darren's ability to do business in the Loop during rush hour and in other areas of the city succeed, however, that maneuverability is going to be seriously restricted. As we rolled up to Navy Pier, I realized just how big a change that would be for the city's rickshaw cowboys.

"Now this is like halfway legal in a manner of speaking," said Darren, as he tried to sneak me down the pier to the front door of WBEZ. But just as he spoke, a security guard blocked our path and turned us back around with a stern warning: "These carts are not allowed!"

Sooner or later, there will probably be no such thing as ‘halfway legal’ for the pedicabbers of Chicago — only legal and illegal. Whether the industry can thrive, or just survive, remains to be seen.

MPC Roundtable – Bus Rapid Transit on a Roll in Chicago

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:53:00 -0600

Offering similar benefits to rail, but at a fraction of the cost, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) will make the most of Chicago's existing street infrastructure to better connect people to neighborhoods and destinations across the city.

This new form of public transportation not only will increase access to jobs, retail and institutions, including schools and hospitals, but also will run more efficiently than a regular bus, saving riders time and money.

The City of Chicago has big BRT plans, most significantly the development of a system plan to scope out future priority BRT routes. Already, individual routes are in the works: momentum continues to build for the Central Loop BRT route along Madison and Washington, as the City prepares to release the design, and soon the City will announce the locally preferred alternative for the Western and Ashland corridors. Meanwhile, the Chicago Dept. of Housing and Economic Development will begin a land use study for both corridors, and the Chicago Architecture Foundation is gearing up to kick off a station design competition in March to help influence new BRT stations.

Planning for BRT in Chicago has induced unprecedented partnerships between multiple City agencies and nonprofit organizations. At this roundtable, Gabe Klein, commissioner of the Chicago Dept. of Transportation; Nick Turner, managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation; Rebekah Scheinfeld, chief planning officer, Chicago Transit Authority; and Warren Ribley, executive director of the Illinois Medical District, will discuss exciting developments for this new form of transportation in Chicago.

Recorded live Friday, March 1, 2013 at the Metropolitan Planning Council.

Englewood residents fight for environmental safeguards during rail yard expansion

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:39:00 -0600

Residents in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood are demanding that railway company Norfolk Southern include environmental protections into its expansion plans for its South Side rail yard.

The company has already bought and demolished some Englewood homes over the past several years to fulfill its expansion plans. Now Norfolk Southern is on track to purchase 104 acres of city land. The yard is set to expand southward, from Garfield Boulevard to 61st Street.

John Paul Jones, the head of the nonprofit Sustainable Englewood, said residents aren’t trying to block the rail yard expansion.

“But for Englewood it could be a dramatic impact on our quality of life but also our well-being because of a host of environmental harms such a project would bring,” Jones said.

Residents worry about health impacts of truck traffic, which would increase because the yard is location where freight is transferred from rail to trucks and vice versa. Residents are particularly concerned about increased diesel-related air pollution, as the Englewood neighborhood already has some of the highest asthma rates in the city.

Jones’ group wants a community benefits agreement from Norfolk Southern, connected to the sale of the city-owned property. Sustainable Englewood is asking for: monitoring and mitigating diesel pollution; creation of green space and placement of buffer zones around homes. The hope is to lessen noise and air pollution.

Brian Urbaszewski of Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago said filters should be go on diesel engine trucks, to eliminate 90 percent of the soot that comes out of tailpipes.

At Tuesday’s city council housing and real estate committee meeting, a hearing for the sale of city land to Norfolk Southern was delayed. A Norfolk Southern spokesman said the company is meeting with environmental activists next month.

Follow Natalie on Twitter @natalieymoore

As Yahoo CEO sparks debate over telecommuting, advocates say Chicagoans are spending too much time at the office

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:18:00 -0600

Leaders at internet giant Yahoo have announced plans to stop letting employees work from home.

Last week, it was reported that Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s new CEO, will force the web company’s few hundred remote workers to come back to the office.

The move was controversial because in some ways Yahoo is bucking a growing trend. Between 2005 and 2011, the number of workers telecommuting in the U.S. grew by 73 percent.

So where does Chicago fit into this trend?

Despite significant growth, Chicago lags behind San Diego, Atlanta, Seattle and a slew of other urban areas in the percentage of total workers who work mainly from home. According to 2009 data, Chicago was at 2.3 percent - the same as the national average at the time (it’s now 2.5 percent).

“Companies continue to think about flexibility and telework as being this sort of soft fluffy thing,” said Kyra Cavanaugh. Her consulting firm, Life Meets Work, helps Chicago-area businesses transition to what she calls a “flexible workplace model.” She argues letting people work from home and allowing flexible hours increases productivity and employee satisfaction, and reduces absenteeism.

On top of the advantages to telecommuting, there are also disadvantages to commuting in Chicago: a recent study shows that it can take Chicago drivers four times as long as it should to get to and from work.

But Cavanaugh thinks the city’s not ready to go too far down the telecommuting road.

“Chicago is the place where, you know, we smelt steel and slaughter cattle, and our attitudes about workplace practices represent that still,” she said.

Chicago-area employers who encourage telecommuting include Aetna, Bank of America and the federal government. The federal Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 encourages federal agencies to save money by allowing eligible employees to work from home, and from 2005-2011 there was a 424 percent increase in the numbers of federal employees working out of the office.

Follow Lewis Wallace on Twitter.

From the archives: LaHood says 'no stopping' high speed rail

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:12:00 -0600

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that he would leave his post in the Obama administration earlier this week. "I have had a good run,” the former Illinois Congressman and Peoria native told the Associated Press. “I'm one of these people who believe that you should go out while they're applauding.”

During his tenure in Washington, LaHood struggled with Congress to pass funding for major infrastructure projects, and eventually compromised with them on a two-year plan, dubbed MAP 21, that gave states more flexibility in spending federal dollars. He also brought greater attention to hazards like distracted driving, and tried to put pedestrians and cyclists on equal footing with drivers, earning him accolades from many alternative transportation advocates.

But one of LaHood’s biggest efforts was his promotion of high speed rail. At an urban policy forum held in Chicago in December, LaHood told the audience that “every generation does something big for the next generation,” and that high speed rail would be our generation’s gift to the next.

In an exit interview with the Huffington Post, LaHood admitted that he felt behind on this quest, but insisted that he and his administration had still “come a long way.”

“As long as President Obama is in the White House, whoever sits in this chair will have high-speed rail as one of their top priorities,” he said.

You can take a closer listen to LaHood’s earlier remarks on high speed rail – and his insistence at its inevitability – in the audio above.

Dynamic Range showcases hidden gems unearthed from Chicago Amplified’s vast archive of public events and appears on weekends. Ray LaHood spoke at an event presented at the UIC Urban Forum in December of 2012. He was interviewed by Steve Schlickman, Executive Director of the UIC Urban Transportation Center. Click here to hear the event in its entirety.

Chicago ready to spend $2 billion on new rail cars

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 11:43:00 -0600

Chicago transit officials are planning to spend up to $2 billion on a new generation of rail cars to modernize the nation's second-largest mass transit system.

The Chicago Transit Authority announced Wednesday it is accepting bids for up to 850 new rail cars that would start to roll out in 2016. They would replace "El" cars that are around 30 years old or older, which is beyond the industry standard for a rail car's useful life.

The CTA began rolling out another series of newer cars last year that offer a smoother ride and more space.

The agency says the latest series planned will allow for continuous replacement of its aging fleet.

In the past, the CTA has waited as long as 20 years between rail car orders.

Traffic congestion's carbon footprint

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 05:00:00 -0600

Traffic congestion produced 56 billion pounds of carbon dioxide (CO₂) pollution in 2011 — roughly equivalent to the emissions from the electricity use of 3.8 million homes for one year — according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s Urban Mobility Report released Tuesday.

While the report’s main innovation was a new metric that predicted the unpredictably of metro area traffic, it also included for the first time an estimate of the additional CO₂ emissions attributed to traffic congestion. That does not include emissions from cars traveling when roadways are uncongested.

Transportation is responsible for roughly one third of U.S. carbon emissions, making it the second largest-emitting sector (behind electricity generation). Worldwide transportation represents 20 percent of total energy consumption.

It is difficult to measure congestion’s contribution to national carbon emissions — estimates are sensitive to highly variable factors like driving behavior, vehicle and roadway types, and local traffic conditions —but the report’s stab at quantifying the issue could help further visualize a largely ignored pollution problem.

Noted climate scientist Richard Alley has pointed out that if the roughly 1 pound of CO₂ per mile that cars emit were “horse ploppies,” instead of invisible gas, every road in the country would be underneath an inch of poop within one year.

“Fuel wasted in congested traffic reached a total of 2.9 billion gallons — enough to fill the New Orleans Superdome four times,” the report reads. That is the same as in 2010, but less than the 3.2 billion gallons wasted in 2005.

There are a few key ways to improve the fuel efficiency of cars. Scientists and engineers are working on lighter vehicles, more efficient engines, and engines that run on alternative fuels. But advocates of policy solutions say just changing driving patterns can also have a significant impact.

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning touts congestion pricing as one such intervention, citing long-term economic impacts to boot — CMAP’s Jesse Elam talked about their plan on The Afternoon Shift.

Research out of the University of California at Riverside, which has its fair share of traffic, found metering ramp entry, lowering average driving speeds to 55 mph and reducing traffic congestion through variable speed limits could each potentially lower CO₂ emissions 7 to 12 percent. The combined effects of one or more of these changes could be greater, their report said.

“Including CO₂ emissions into the [Urban Mobility Report] provides another dimension to the urban congestion problem,” said researcher and co-author David Schrank in a press release. “It points to the importance of implementing transportation improvements to reduce congestion.”

Researchers said they plan to include more metrics of air quality in future reports.

Report: Chicago traffic is bad; leave early

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 14:32:00 -0600

Chicago commuters can rely on traffic being unreliable. That’s according to a new congestion study that looks at travel times and its impact on the local economy.

To measure travel reliability, you need to look at the amount of change there is in the traffic from day to day. Those variables could be a random accident, a presidential motorcade or a thunderstorm.

David Schrank co-authored the Urban Mobility Report from Texas A&M.

"One day it’s an hour. The next day it’s half an hour. The variability is much higher, so your planning time index goes up significantly because you the motorist don’t know what to expect when you get in your vehicle," he said.

Shrank says the planning time index (PTI) is 3.95 for Chicago freeways.

That means you’d multiply that number by how long your commute would take without traffic. If it takes you 20 minutes to drive to work without traffic, then plan on leaving 79 minutes early to better ensure a timely arrival.

Shrank says it won't always take that long to get to a destination. Some days, you might be very early.

The Washington D.C. area has the highest PTI value at 5.72. It also ranks at number one for worst congestion in the country.

Shrank says in 2011, overall congestion cost Chicago more than $6 billion, or just over $11,000 per commuter. That includes fuel costs and truck congestion costs.

Shrank applauds the city on some strategies, like the use of ramp metering. Those are the traffic lights at the entrance of the freeway.

"Those can keep traffic from backing up behind an incident as badly and keep some movement happening on the roadway instead of becoming a parking lot because there's a crash or a stalled vehicle," he said.

Randy Blankenhorn with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning says more could and will be done to get at the problem.

He says the agency is proposing congestion pricing on five new expressway projects under the GO TO 2040 plan. Congestion pricing is a way of charging users, like tollways.

"I think that the plan tries to look at how this region is going to grow and what that means for congestion. We've got to do a better job of managing the way people move in and out and around metropolitan Chicago," he said.

Blankenhorn says the proposal also includes adding lanes to existing expressways.

"If we did this on the Stevenson Expressway where we added a lane and made it an express toll lane, you could really reduce your travel time from over 45 minutes down to 25 minutes at a cost of about $2.25," he said.

Blankenhorn also says the report is evidence that public transportation needs to be improved around the region.

WBEZ spoke to Chicago commuters like Tony Brouzas about the report.

“You can never tell which roads are going to be under construction downtown. It always seems like there’s some major thoroughfare that is closed off," he said. "[Traffic] makes you not want to come downtown or to try to take the Metra—but the Metra raised the prices so much it almost makes more sense to drive than to take the train.”

Scott Kanowsky contributed to this report.

From the archives: LaHood says 'no stopping' high speed rail

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 08:00:00 -0600

In an exit interview with the Huffington Post, LaHood admitted that he felt behind on this quest, but insisted that he and his administration had still “come a long way.”

“As long as President Obama is in the White House, whoever sits in this chair will have high-speed rail as one of their top priorities,” he said.

You can take a closer listen to LaHood’s earlier remarks on high speed rail – and his insistence at its inevitability – in the audio above.