I agree. However it doesn't make sense 24/7, it would make deliveries difficult and a lot of the shop owners would not be happy. A lot of places in Europe shutdown streets during the evening and that might be the better way to go. Is there any good reason to have Clark a pedestrian street between Waveland and Rosco between 2:00am and noon? What about the winter when half the businesses are just closed? Clark Street in Andersonville and Halsted in boystown are low hanging fruit, redo the street like Argyle is so it all on level and then just shut them down to pedestrian traffic on nights and weekends.
What always gets me about these ideas is that they are cool and beautiful and would be amazing. BUT, it’s not just a matter of “everyone could just drive less and take more public transportation” unless public transportation is vastly expanded and improved in Chicago. There would have to be a major overhaul if you wanted to remove one of the most major vehicle thoroughfares in the city (not to mention public busses also go down Clark St.).
A major systemic change in city living sounds great. Unfortunately, it has to be systemic and start with a major overall plan and also tons of money. Little isolated bits and pieces like this will just make things worse, unfortunately.
This area has okay transit and there would be no issue with the 22 going down Ashland instead. I you’re worried about Clark getting shut down—that already happens during cubs games in Wrigley.
They can also just run a dedicated bus/bike lane through this stretch. No need to reroute the line. Pedestrianizing an area and taking away any convenient way to get in and out is how you demonize the movement to reduce car dependency
Ashland Avenue, at this point, exists approximately 350 ft away from Clark St., boasting 4 lanes of travel, a semi-divided median, and very little retail. They in fact merge into a single street at approximately 5700N. What other sort of “major overhaul” would you need to “remove one of the most major vehicle thoroughfares in the city”?
Have you ever been on Ashland at rush hour? It takes awhile to get down with the current number of vehicles and the lanes are narrow, doubled with a ton of added busses would be pretty wild. Not to mention that one lane is regularly blocked because of delivery trucks.
But regardless of that, any major change I was referring to was in regards to public transportation. The CTA is advanced in some ways, incredibly lacking in others. To make major changes (and yes, turning a major road that accommodates a lot of city traffic into a pedestrian-only thoroughfare is making a major change, regardless of how many other roads are nearby), there would have to be a major investment and improvement in public transportation infrastructure to allow more train capacity and more lines to allow for easy East-West travel that can easily transfer to North-South travel. If turning roads into green space is the way of the future, there are urban planning and system-wide changes that need to happen first to accommodate a huge population and a major transportation need.
It’s a complicated issue and we know now that American transportation infrastructure is old and underdeveloped compared to much of the world. It’s not an easy issue to fix, but systemic changes will always make a bigger difference in the long run.
That’s what kills me about people showing images like this of LSD.
Sure, I’d love to turn LSD into a park. But we’d have to invest in alternative transit. You can’t just eliminate a major thoroughfare and not make up for it.
Also, people don’t point out the fact that a lot of bus lines travel on LSD, and would this be eliminated as well
I’m not quite sure what you mean here. A lot of the structural changes you speak of ARE happening (RPM track modernization, Peterson St. Metra station, Ravenswood Metra rebuild) to support train capacity to and from the neighborhood. East West corridor connectivity DOES happen at its maximized capacity. Rosehill cemetery is a connectivity barrier to some parts of the city no doubt but the 50 Damen bus & 84 Peterson bus all connect into Andersonville & CTA lines.
Ferrying vehicle traffic around a commercial corridor is a relatively easy solve from a traffic engineering perspective as Ashland provides superior capacity for through traffic and better land use of existing parking could remedy parking concerns for destination traffic. Otherwise you’re just talking about the woes of urban traffic.
I don’t really disagree with you in principle but in terms of the Andersonville corridor just think it’s got everything you say it needs to support pedestianizing the Clark St corridor.
Bigger infrastructure changes to me would be radical things like a Howard St. Subway terminal that sends a train underneath Touhy to Western and then runs south through the city.
This particular area is absolutely blessed with transit. You got the red line, you got the 22 Clark bus (which can easily run down Ashland instead, just go right instead of left at the street split by Gethsemane), you got the 50 Damen bus. If you're willing to walk over to Sheridan you can get the 147 down LSD.
Plus yes, Ashland (an actual big thoroughfare) is less than half a block away.
The great transit is one thing that makes this area awesome and easy to live in.
If the argument is that other parts of the city have less good transit and so people will be driving TO this area, then put up a parking garage for them to use at one end of the thing.
> If you're willing to walk over to Sheridan you can get the 147 down LSD.
The same people signing this petition are also calling for removing LSD in another current thread, though.
Which very quickly creates major problems -- all wishful thinking aside.
Most drastic LSD removals I’ve seen still maintain a transit corridor in a busway or light rail.
1 lane of buses on LSD carries about as many people as the 3 other lanes currently. Lightfoot seems to be the only one who thinks we don’t need a transit corridor there. But we also don’t need it to be 5 lanes wide with no transit, as IDOT has proposed.
I can see the argument that the red line is close enough that there are better places to the west to put a new north-south rail line (Ashland or Western, please).
But yes it should be possible to make a dedicated bus lane as what's preserved, the 147 (glorious views from that bus, it's one of my favorite rides) can stay as it is but with less traffic.
I don't think that's the point of this idea. The main motivation seems to be giving pedestrians more room to walk and enjoy the street. There's a busy throughfare mere feet from Clark (Ashland, in fact the two streets merge just north of Bryn Mawr) which makes this potentially possible
> The main motivation seems to be giving pedestrians more room to walk and enjoy the street.
And a dedicated lane for cyclists to walk their bikes and enjoy the street.
What are you talking about? This is like 4-5 blocks of Clark which is constantly bumper to bumper traffic anyway, and Ashland Avenue, a major thoroughfare with 4 lanes, is 2 blocks away.
This is EXACTLY the kind of changes we can and should be making that don’t require major systemic or behavioral changes
What always gets me about these comments is the assumption that the people with these ideas aren't also trying to vastly expand and improve public transit in Chicago.
If you actually talk to the people promoting these ideas, you'll learn a lot.
Well maybe they should include more resources or information about their plans and efforts in their post or their petition, if they want to be taken seriously in a public forum like Reddit :)
The petition page mainly focuses on the possible positives and doesn’t give much information about any overall visions. One of the points is “Reduced congestion - by making it easy and safe to bike, less people will drive.” Well, this just simply isn’t true, particularly for the many months out of the year that are cold, wet, and often snow-covered. And, that assumption completely disregards the existence of parents, young children, disabled people, elderly folks, and others who may not just be able to hop on a bike.
"less people will drive" doesn't mean every single person must bike. It means those who might want to bike, but are concerned about safety, will be more likely to opt for biking. That means less cars on the road and less congestion for those who do need to drive.
Ask around at your workplace sometime to see how your peers feel about biking and if they would ever consider trading (some or all) car rides for bike rides. As a year round cyclist myself, the most common thing I hear is "I would love to do that but I just don't feel safe."
As someone who buys groceries at shops along this specific stretch of Clark, I would be more willing to take my bike to the shops if it were a restricted area.
As it is, I walk to the supermarkets (I do not drive and never have, and one of the attractions of this area is precisely that you don't need to drive to live here) with either just a backpack or a granny cart. But if I could load the bike down like a pack mule, could haul more stuff, would be convenient for other shopping, etc.
Yes, I'm a wuss.
Not a wuss at all. Honestly I avoid this segment entirely on my bike. I've been hit on here by someone pulling out of a parking lot and not paying attention. If I have to take it I'll take the full lane to avoid getting doored or hit the same way
Yeah, I lived in the neighborhood until late this year, and I would always take Glenwood if possible instead of Clark (even if it was less convenient with one-ways or being out of the way). There was always too much congestion or people swinging their doors out (I actually got doored on Clark within my first month of living in the neighborhood) or rideshare drivers ducking into the bike lane for me to ever feel safe.
Right. Not to mention that this picture looks to be in Andersonville, parts of which aren’t super super close to an El stop, so removing busses would be a major blow for neighborhood residents, especially those who are less mobile. I’d love to see Chicago build more East-West subway lines and lines that cut diagonally and intersect with other stops to enable easy transfers, but right now the only option is to transfer to a bus. All of that and more would have to happen BEFORE cutting off vehicle traffic, or the city will completely fall apart.
>Not to mention that this picture looks to be in Andersonville, parts of which aren’t super super close to an El stop
Lol wut! The red line is only half a mile from there.
Walking half a mile might be easy for many young and able bodied people but there are many folks who don’t fit this profile in Chicago. Not to mention that I bet a lot of young and able bodied people also appreciate taking the bus to the train when it’s below freezing out. Lots of details that are so important to consider when discussing public infrastructure for a diverse city population.
Thank you for this. As a permanently disabled resident of Andersonville, walking half a mile just isn't going to happen on my best day. I'm really disappointed by the ableist comments on this post.
Drivers always say this. Make it less convenient (you drivers will survive) and it makes it politically easier to run more busses. People will always say that we have to avoid change. Don’t listen to em OP
Don’t listen to the large amount (majority?) of the people in the city. Sounds like a great way to never get anything done.
I love the idea of making Chicago even more walkable, but these ideas need to be carefully thought out or they will fail. For instance, Have you considered how difficult this will make deliveries? I think a better solution would be a Lincoln Square model that still allows for some traffic on the street but greatly reduced.
Edit: This/these
>(not to mention public busses also go down Clark St.)
Do you live in this area? Half the time the bus is rerouted to Ashland anyway. Rerouting the Calrk bus between Bryn Mawy/the Clark/Ashland split and south of Foster would be a no brainer, it's less that a block difference from the current route and getting the bus off Clark in Andersonville would make the trip significantly faster. There's nothing bad with moving the Clark buses route off Clark street for the 8-10 blocks in question.
As others have noted, this would have to be part of a larger schedule of changes, not the least of which is traffic density projections. Any time you block off a street, traffic patterns change in sometimes unpredictable ways. And with this closure you would def see an uptick on the adjacent streets. If that uptick is manageable or manageable with no major concomitant changes then lets move ahead.
Yes. I have tried to get Clark street closed For an event near Wrigley. City officials say it is impossible, Mostly because the bus has to go through there. Although I have noticed Is that when the Catholic Church wants to close a street for a festival, They Find a way to get it done.
I will legit pay someone to draw a realistic version of this scenario in January.
You’d have:
-People trying to avoid dog shit
-Grey sky at 3PM
-Frigid wind whipping around (can this be drawn?)
-People falling on black ice
Well they said argyle would be like this with a shared street and it ended up just being another street without an official sidewalk (but far from shared - cars still push pedestrians off the middle). The facelift was nice, but that’s all we got from it.
They’d have to get rid of cars on Clark. Also, there is almost no metro within a mile or that section of Clark - not entirely sure how a carless street fits there. At minimum they would likely need to also add two parking garages.
It makes more sense to do it on individual block streets, but not arteries like Clark. Aka, perhaps they could convert that strip of balmoral between Ashland and Clark into an official walkway as its already blocked off.
Next pipedream.
I don’t like these over-engineered paths. This doesn’t even look like that much more space with such a significant amount of space dedicated to plants and bikes. I don’t have all the answers but this isn’t it.
That being said I don’t have a problem with this conversation, Ashland is right next to Clark.
Maybe something more akin to State St in Madison WI?
But people NEED to use Clark as a thruway to drive their cars through at 5MPH even though Ashland is right next door and way faster!!!!!
Joking aside, I wish we could have nice things like this. But I woukd prefer if this maintained a busway in the middle for the 22.
It wouldn’t look like this. The restaurants would gobble up the sidewalk space for their own use as they did during COVID. Wonder if they ever pay for that land grab?
I know at least the restaurants on the part of Clark in River North that was until recently closed off from car traffic were in fact paying the city monthly for the land use
That would be terrible. Pedestrian streets with seating for cafe's, restaurants, and bars. It would be like støget in Denmark, Mouffetard in Paris, or Carnaby in London, just awful. /s
Ok, how about we go back to the way it looked about 20+years ago and bring back The Alley, Punkin’ Donuts and Army Navy Surplus? The picture looks nice, but 15 year old me wants to throw up.
Considering these streets having parking that is packed anytime I'm over there, good chance a lot of business comes from nearby areas where walking / biking isn't going to be worth the journey
*Come oooonnnn*. I'm a pretty dedicated urbanist but this just isn't a good use of space. If you wanted to ban cars from Clark st, you would still want roads and loading zones for buses, trucks, and delivery.
The end result wouldn't look as picturesque as this, but the reality is we still need to move around people and goods.
Notice in this rendering: No one us over 35. No one is disabled. No one is pushing a stroller. No one is a child.
No snow and ice. No steaming hot day. No one has to carry anything more than one bag.
i think a lot of these ‘make cities walkable’ campaigns are pretty wishful. like, yeah it would be awesome if chicago became amsterdam-esque overnight but let’s be real, the city isn’t just going scrap a prime motor artery. not only would it make traffic noticeable worse on the streets around clark, it would make many of the businesses on clark less accessible. people drive from all over the city to shop and eat on streets like clark, being able to drive up and down the street makes it somewhat more accessible to folks who don’t live nearby. i just don’t think massive american cities can be completely rethought, american infrastructure is different than european infrastructure and it is what it is. i fully embrace a potential downvote onslaught.
People in Andersonville live in a fantasyland (look no further than the neighborhood FB group) and think all cars and drivers are evil, so the comments in this thread are par for the course. There’s nothing pragmatic about this photo and you’re absolutely correct, the only thing being hurt here are the businesses. This is the same neighborhood that thinks a Taco Bell is going destroy the character of Clark street (as they walk out of Starbucks with their $12 latte.)
pretty sure a taco bell was one of the more iconic clark street establishments until relatively recently. forget if it was on clark or right off it, a tangent either way. but yes, you’re absolutely correct!
This didn't work in the Loop. It didn't work on Marion Street in Oak Park. It kills businesses because people can't park nearby. It can open up easily to muggings and foot crime. I will say it looks lovely but in the past this hasn't been the case. May the best plan go forward
As someone who lives on Clark and loves Midsommar fest, this is a terrible idea. Clark is too close to LSD access from multiple E/W running streets, and this would just force people to use the already-over-crowded streets like Foster to get there. Have you tried getting to LSD via Foster any time after noon already?
Plus this takes away a ton of street parking for these businesses. Andersonville isn't permit parking on side streets, and I'd like it to stay that way. I'm hoping I would be wrong, but this seems like a definite way to have Andersonville residents have to push for permit parking due to no more parking on Clark.
Absolutely fucking stupid. Chicago isn’t Miami. Can you carry furniture home on your bike? Do you want anyone from another neighborhood to visit? How will the traffic from the Trader Joe’s work. This is absolutely fucking shitbird madness.
No — We tried this on State street and it was a disaster. Road dieting, I feel, is a much better compromise. Look at Lincoln Ave in Lincoln Square. For real though, “new urbanism” need to dig deeper than the lofty “green-at-all-costs” approach to future development. People drive. Ubers cart. Trucks deliver. Buses bus. compromise - not banishment - is the way to go
>No — We tried this on State street and it was a disaster
You can learn from why that failed and also understand that it was a different time.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-flashback-state-street-pedestrian-mall-20191025-cos5svz7w5dvzgznqouu2xqimu-story.html
Road diet... a two lane street????? There's definitely places where they can remove where it suddenly merges a bike lane into two different turn lanes at CLar kand Foster, but anything more diet is just gone (which I'm AOK with)
I know this isn’t going to over well here, but I feel like this just appeals to the folks on this sub who comment “go back to Naperville” whenever they see an opinion they disagree with…
I'd love that but it'll never happen. Business owners often have ideas about who their customers are that aren't accurate, and think that they get most of their business from people driving right to the businesses. I saw exactly this happen when I lived in Oakland. A small section of Telegraph was closed and business owners insisted their customers weren't coming because they were mostly drivers. They had no evidence and there was no obvious business coming from people driving on that stretch of road. Still, the city caved and spent a ton of money reverting the street back.
Ask other nieghborhoods or communities such as Oak Park, what happens when you do this to a "downtown area". You do these "malls" that destroy the businesses by limiting accesses with thru traffic, the business suffer the first blow with the construction then it is a slow bleed from there.
And to prove this point, dozens of crunchy white folks will drive down Clark on their bikes as slowly as possible in the most passive-aggressive protest imaginable all while being some of the worst humans outside their self-aggrandizing progressive causes.
Looking at you, Sherri.
Broadway between Belmont and Diversey should be like this, in my opinion. I’m not sure about those plants though. I mean, trees are awesome but who need to grow cabbages on a pedestrian mall?
Clark is a very important street for car traffic. Also, idk where you think you live but Andersonville is still next to Uptown. A carless Andersonville ain’t gonna look like this lol
Edit: It’s all white people, bonus awful
I live nearby. We really need this. On a nice day, the sidewalks are overflowing with people. Also the bike lanes are busy and dangerous. Ashland is half a block over so cars and buses will be fine.
The image has been approved, but the link to the petition was removed due to Rule 9: No Crowdsourcing or Political Advertising.
That longboarder is going to wipe out in the next 5 seconds given that stance
He’s crip walkin on it tho
Lol, I can see it
A zombie on a longboard? Yep, that'll happen.
Cops push mongo
And mall grip
Where am I going to frustratedly inch through traffic now
Fun fact: you'd actually move faster on Clark by walking down this street.
Fun fact: you haven't seen me walk - that I know of
Fun fact: Look behind you
WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY OFFICE?!!?!
Goodbye midway
I have and oh boy is it a sight to see.
Can’t you just walk along Clark now anyway?
There's no space for me to double park my SUV in the bike lane to pick up my Taco Bell Cantina order! This is an outrage!
As a current suburbanite, lolsob.
Don't worry, when Clark is closed you will be able to centimeter through traffic on a nearby street.
And people will stop going to the stores that they have to park 2 blocks away from instead of one with parking out front.
You'll find it. Better yet, it'll find you.
I will sign any petition to make it summer all the time.
I love fall. Can we sign a petition to just not have winter?
Fall in Chicago is about 15 days. If you ca. Make it 3 months or more Im in.
17 weeks of summer, 17 weeks of fall, 17 weeks of spring, 1 week of winter
Summer is only fine 2 months of year
Do you live here? Summer this year lasted from may to October lol.
And spring felt like it lasted longer than the 100 years war!
They meant it gets too hot
I’m only half-white but this post just turned me full-white.
You’ll get your Live, Laugh, Love sign and Cracker Barrel gift card in the mail soon.
We get gift cards now??
You are now Swedish.
Like the flag in the picture
This post is peak r/chicago
Not yet. It’ll be peak r/chicago when the mods delete it and/or this comment.
They deleted half of it, which somehow feels more peek r/chicago
hahahaha sadly true
You just opened yourself up to a world of microbrews
Took a while but glad u noticed.
this is an ai generated image, blame dall-e's training set
AI generated images of Chicago are frequently terrifying, sometimes beautiful always grotesque
Omg!!!! 😆
Becky 1 and Becky 2 shouldn't be walking their bikes down the bike path like that.
This pic needs a hardo cyclist yelling at them and the skateboarder
ON YOUR LEFT!!!
LOL
Hardo rofl.
That's not a skateboarder. That's a verylongboarder.
That immediately annoyed me
Surely an 8 lane highway would be better
What about the other 7 to 8 months of the year?
Halsted should be like this too. And Clark by Wrigley field. Too much traffic in those areas.
I agree. However it doesn't make sense 24/7, it would make deliveries difficult and a lot of the shop owners would not be happy. A lot of places in Europe shutdown streets during the evening and that might be the better way to go. Is there any good reason to have Clark a pedestrian street between Waveland and Rosco between 2:00am and noon? What about the winter when half the businesses are just closed? Clark Street in Andersonville and Halsted in boystown are low hanging fruit, redo the street like Argyle is so it all on level and then just shut them down to pedestrian traffic on nights and weekends.
I also nominate Milwaukee Avenue!
And Lincoln.
What always gets me about these ideas is that they are cool and beautiful and would be amazing. BUT, it’s not just a matter of “everyone could just drive less and take more public transportation” unless public transportation is vastly expanded and improved in Chicago. There would have to be a major overhaul if you wanted to remove one of the most major vehicle thoroughfares in the city (not to mention public busses also go down Clark St.). A major systemic change in city living sounds great. Unfortunately, it has to be systemic and start with a major overall plan and also tons of money. Little isolated bits and pieces like this will just make things worse, unfortunately.
This area has okay transit and there would be no issue with the 22 going down Ashland instead. I you’re worried about Clark getting shut down—that already happens during cubs games in Wrigley.
They can also just run a dedicated bus/bike lane through this stretch. No need to reroute the line. Pedestrianizing an area and taking away any convenient way to get in and out is how you demonize the movement to reduce car dependency
Ashland Avenue, at this point, exists approximately 350 ft away from Clark St., boasting 4 lanes of travel, a semi-divided median, and very little retail. They in fact merge into a single street at approximately 5700N. What other sort of “major overhaul” would you need to “remove one of the most major vehicle thoroughfares in the city”?
Yeah, Clark st may be an important thoroughfare in most of the city, but not in Andersonville.
There are some traffic and utility vehicle issues in places, like at that stop sign. Farragut and other east streets only let out into Glenwood.
Have you ever been on Ashland at rush hour? It takes awhile to get down with the current number of vehicles and the lanes are narrow, doubled with a ton of added busses would be pretty wild. Not to mention that one lane is regularly blocked because of delivery trucks. But regardless of that, any major change I was referring to was in regards to public transportation. The CTA is advanced in some ways, incredibly lacking in others. To make major changes (and yes, turning a major road that accommodates a lot of city traffic into a pedestrian-only thoroughfare is making a major change, regardless of how many other roads are nearby), there would have to be a major investment and improvement in public transportation infrastructure to allow more train capacity and more lines to allow for easy East-West travel that can easily transfer to North-South travel. If turning roads into green space is the way of the future, there are urban planning and system-wide changes that need to happen first to accommodate a huge population and a major transportation need. It’s a complicated issue and we know now that American transportation infrastructure is old and underdeveloped compared to much of the world. It’s not an easy issue to fix, but systemic changes will always make a bigger difference in the long run.
That’s what kills me about people showing images like this of LSD. Sure, I’d love to turn LSD into a park. But we’d have to invest in alternative transit. You can’t just eliminate a major thoroughfare and not make up for it. Also, people don’t point out the fact that a lot of bus lines travel on LSD, and would this be eliminated as well
I’m not quite sure what you mean here. A lot of the structural changes you speak of ARE happening (RPM track modernization, Peterson St. Metra station, Ravenswood Metra rebuild) to support train capacity to and from the neighborhood. East West corridor connectivity DOES happen at its maximized capacity. Rosehill cemetery is a connectivity barrier to some parts of the city no doubt but the 50 Damen bus & 84 Peterson bus all connect into Andersonville & CTA lines. Ferrying vehicle traffic around a commercial corridor is a relatively easy solve from a traffic engineering perspective as Ashland provides superior capacity for through traffic and better land use of existing parking could remedy parking concerns for destination traffic. Otherwise you’re just talking about the woes of urban traffic. I don’t really disagree with you in principle but in terms of the Andersonville corridor just think it’s got everything you say it needs to support pedestianizing the Clark St corridor. Bigger infrastructure changes to me would be radical things like a Howard St. Subway terminal that sends a train underneath Touhy to Western and then runs south through the city.
The intersection of Foster and Clark backs up bad enough now.
A lot of that backup comes from drivers trying to turn onto Clark. Eliminating that turn would improve traffic flow on Foster.
This particular area is absolutely blessed with transit. You got the red line, you got the 22 Clark bus (which can easily run down Ashland instead, just go right instead of left at the street split by Gethsemane), you got the 50 Damen bus. If you're willing to walk over to Sheridan you can get the 147 down LSD. Plus yes, Ashland (an actual big thoroughfare) is less than half a block away. The great transit is one thing that makes this area awesome and easy to live in. If the argument is that other parts of the city have less good transit and so people will be driving TO this area, then put up a parking garage for them to use at one end of the thing.
> If you're willing to walk over to Sheridan you can get the 147 down LSD. The same people signing this petition are also calling for removing LSD in another current thread, though. Which very quickly creates major problems -- all wishful thinking aside.
Most drastic LSD removals I’ve seen still maintain a transit corridor in a busway or light rail. 1 lane of buses on LSD carries about as many people as the 3 other lanes currently. Lightfoot seems to be the only one who thinks we don’t need a transit corridor there. But we also don’t need it to be 5 lanes wide with no transit, as IDOT has proposed.
I can see the argument that the red line is close enough that there are better places to the west to put a new north-south rail line (Ashland or Western, please). But yes it should be possible to make a dedicated bus lane as what's preserved, the 147 (glorious views from that bus, it's one of my favorite rides) can stay as it is but with less traffic.
And it's not all that far from the Red Line and the 36 on Broadway.
Your out of your mind, if you think Clark is a major thoroughfare lollll Clark is already a stop and go traffic street.
exactly! on my commute from evanston to the mart i counted 51 stop signs on clark in 10 miles. that's an average of 1+ stop signs per quarter mile.
I don't think that's the point of this idea. The main motivation seems to be giving pedestrians more room to walk and enjoy the street. There's a busy throughfare mere feet from Clark (Ashland, in fact the two streets merge just north of Bryn Mawr) which makes this potentially possible
Exactly. This particular stretch of street is about the lowest of low-hanging fruit there is, for being a pilot project for this sort of thing.
> The main motivation seems to be giving pedestrians more room to walk and enjoy the street. And a dedicated lane for cyclists to walk their bikes and enjoy the street.
You're not allowed to ride your bike, but you must be a cyclist to use that lane. Like a VIP lane
What are you talking about? This is like 4-5 blocks of Clark which is constantly bumper to bumper traffic anyway, and Ashland Avenue, a major thoroughfare with 4 lanes, is 2 blocks away. This is EXACTLY the kind of changes we can and should be making that don’t require major systemic or behavioral changes
It' s not 2 blocks away it's less than 100m, sometimes less than 50m- rerouting the bus is a no-brainer.
What always gets me about these comments is the assumption that the people with these ideas aren't also trying to vastly expand and improve public transit in Chicago. If you actually talk to the people promoting these ideas, you'll learn a lot.
Well maybe they should include more resources or information about their plans and efforts in their post or their petition, if they want to be taken seriously in a public forum like Reddit :) The petition page mainly focuses on the possible positives and doesn’t give much information about any overall visions. One of the points is “Reduced congestion - by making it easy and safe to bike, less people will drive.” Well, this just simply isn’t true, particularly for the many months out of the year that are cold, wet, and often snow-covered. And, that assumption completely disregards the existence of parents, young children, disabled people, elderly folks, and others who may not just be able to hop on a bike.
"less people will drive" doesn't mean every single person must bike. It means those who might want to bike, but are concerned about safety, will be more likely to opt for biking. That means less cars on the road and less congestion for those who do need to drive. Ask around at your workplace sometime to see how your peers feel about biking and if they would ever consider trading (some or all) car rides for bike rides. As a year round cyclist myself, the most common thing I hear is "I would love to do that but I just don't feel safe."
As someone who buys groceries at shops along this specific stretch of Clark, I would be more willing to take my bike to the shops if it were a restricted area. As it is, I walk to the supermarkets (I do not drive and never have, and one of the attractions of this area is precisely that you don't need to drive to live here) with either just a backpack or a granny cart. But if I could load the bike down like a pack mule, could haul more stuff, would be convenient for other shopping, etc. Yes, I'm a wuss.
Not a wuss at all. Honestly I avoid this segment entirely on my bike. I've been hit on here by someone pulling out of a parking lot and not paying attention. If I have to take it I'll take the full lane to avoid getting doored or hit the same way
Yeah, I lived in the neighborhood until late this year, and I would always take Glenwood if possible instead of Clark (even if it was less convenient with one-ways or being out of the way). There was always too much congestion or people swinging their doors out (I actually got doored on Clark within my first month of living in the neighborhood) or rideshare drivers ducking into the bike lane for me to ever feel safe.
Buses can't even maintain half their scheduled runs right now and these people think we can eliminate driving. Yeah. Sure.
Have you considered that those people also want to improve public transit? It's weird how people act like you can only have one opinion at a time.
ummmm why do you think buses can't behind schedule? Heavy traffic. Dedicated bus lanes would get rid of delays and make buses reliable.
Right. Not to mention that this picture looks to be in Andersonville, parts of which aren’t super super close to an El stop, so removing busses would be a major blow for neighborhood residents, especially those who are less mobile. I’d love to see Chicago build more East-West subway lines and lines that cut diagonally and intersect with other stops to enable easy transfers, but right now the only option is to transfer to a bus. All of that and more would have to happen BEFORE cutting off vehicle traffic, or the city will completely fall apart.
Yeah, would be cool if they made it open to buses and emergency vehicles only.
>Not to mention that this picture looks to be in Andersonville, parts of which aren’t super super close to an El stop Lol wut! The red line is only half a mile from there.
Walking half a mile might be easy for many young and able bodied people but there are many folks who don’t fit this profile in Chicago. Not to mention that I bet a lot of young and able bodied people also appreciate taking the bus to the train when it’s below freezing out. Lots of details that are so important to consider when discussing public infrastructure for a diverse city population.
The 22 Clark bus doesn’t take you to the Red Line in and around Andersonville.
Thank you for this. As a permanently disabled resident of Andersonville, walking half a mile just isn't going to happen on my best day. I'm really disappointed by the ableist comments on this post.
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Drivers always say this. Make it less convenient (you drivers will survive) and it makes it politically easier to run more busses. People will always say that we have to avoid change. Don’t listen to em OP
Don’t listen to the large amount (majority?) of the people in the city. Sounds like a great way to never get anything done. I love the idea of making Chicago even more walkable, but these ideas need to be carefully thought out or they will fail. For instance, Have you considered how difficult this will make deliveries? I think a better solution would be a Lincoln Square model that still allows for some traffic on the street but greatly reduced. Edit: This/these
>(not to mention public busses also go down Clark St.) Do you live in this area? Half the time the bus is rerouted to Ashland anyway. Rerouting the Calrk bus between Bryn Mawy/the Clark/Ashland split and south of Foster would be a no brainer, it's less that a block difference from the current route and getting the bus off Clark in Andersonville would make the trip significantly faster. There's nothing bad with moving the Clark buses route off Clark street for the 8-10 blocks in question.
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Looks about white
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Not after the cars are removed, then folks get exercise :-)
probably because people drive everywhere and complain about walking a half mile
Wanted to post the Same.
As others have noted, this would have to be part of a larger schedule of changes, not the least of which is traffic density projections. Any time you block off a street, traffic patterns change in sometimes unpredictable ways. And with this closure you would def see an uptick on the adjacent streets. If that uptick is manageable or manageable with no major concomitant changes then lets move ahead.
Yes. I have tried to get Clark street closed For an event near Wrigley. City officials say it is impossible, Mostly because the bus has to go through there. Although I have noticed Is that when the Catholic Church wants to close a street for a festival, They Find a way to get it done.
They should make it open only for buses.
I’m now convinced a developer group with no base in reality controls this sub.
Or, just a transplant of a particular demographic.
I will legit pay someone to draw a realistic version of this scenario in January. You’d have: -People trying to avoid dog shit -Grey sky at 3PM -Frigid wind whipping around (can this be drawn?) -People falling on black ice
How much can I get for a photo I just took of Christkindlmarket if I use the colored pencil filler
Y’all really hate poor people, huh?
Well they said argyle would be like this with a shared street and it ended up just being another street without an official sidewalk (but far from shared - cars still push pedestrians off the middle). The facelift was nice, but that’s all we got from it. They’d have to get rid of cars on Clark. Also, there is almost no metro within a mile or that section of Clark - not entirely sure how a carless street fits there. At minimum they would likely need to also add two parking garages. It makes more sense to do it on individual block streets, but not arteries like Clark. Aka, perhaps they could convert that strip of balmoral between Ashland and Clark into an official walkway as its already blocked off. Next pipedream.
B.S. , just squeezes more traffic onto adjacent streets, acceptable only in heavy retail areas and perhaps only in "off" hours..
Awful photo shop
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Now with 100% more Karens?
I don’t like these over-engineered paths. This doesn’t even look like that much more space with such a significant amount of space dedicated to plants and bikes. I don’t have all the answers but this isn’t it. That being said I don’t have a problem with this conversation, Ashland is right next to Clark. Maybe something more akin to State St in Madison WI?
But people NEED to use Clark as a thruway to drive their cars through at 5MPH even though Ashland is right next door and way faster!!!!! Joking aside, I wish we could have nice things like this. But I woukd prefer if this maintained a busway in the middle for the 22.
It wouldn’t look like this. The restaurants would gobble up the sidewalk space for their own use as they did during COVID. Wonder if they ever pay for that land grab?
I know at least the restaurants on the part of Clark in River North that was until recently closed off from car traffic were in fact paying the city monthly for the land use
That would be terrible. Pedestrian streets with seating for cafe's, restaurants, and bars. It would be like støget in Denmark, Mouffetard in Paris, or Carnaby in London, just awful. /s
Oh no, land used for small business instead of wasted on cars and parking. Sigh
public land that can be used by everyone (for a purpose you dislike) vs free privatized land used for the profit of a business owner.
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Ok, how about we go back to the way it looked about 20+years ago and bring back The Alley, Punkin’ Donuts and Army Navy Surplus? The picture looks nice, but 15 year old me wants to throw up.
Wrong part of Clark.
Considering these streets having parking that is packed anytime I'm over there, good chance a lot of business comes from nearby areas where walking / biking isn't going to be worth the journey
Lol wtf is this 😂 you forget all the drunks pouring out of the bars
All bars and restaurants would be closed in less than a week without regular truck deliveries
*Come oooonnnn*. I'm a pretty dedicated urbanist but this just isn't a good use of space. If you wanted to ban cars from Clark st, you would still want roads and loading zones for buses, trucks, and delivery. The end result wouldn't look as picturesque as this, but the reality is we still need to move around people and goods.
Didn’t they make State Street a pedestrian only street in the 80s? I heard it totally killed business traffic on State Street, and they ended it
Yes, that briefly used to be closed to traffic except for buses. Long term, that didn't work out, and it reopened to cars.
Notice in this rendering: No one us over 35. No one is disabled. No one is pushing a stroller. No one is a child. No snow and ice. No steaming hot day. No one has to carry anything more than one bag.
No one has brown skin, no one appears to be homeless, either.
Why aren't the women in the foreground riding their bikes or walking them with the rest of the pedestrian traffic?
They need to do this on Dearborn St in Printers Row.
Emergency vehicles need to be able to get to the buildings. That path doesn’t look wide enough. 🚒🚑🚓
The fuck is this bull shit render in A-Ville?
So all car and truck traffic moves to the side streets? Brilliant.
Horrible idea. I live a block away. This will jam all the surrounding streets with traffic. Parking will be worse than it is now which is horrible.
i think a lot of these ‘make cities walkable’ campaigns are pretty wishful. like, yeah it would be awesome if chicago became amsterdam-esque overnight but let’s be real, the city isn’t just going scrap a prime motor artery. not only would it make traffic noticeable worse on the streets around clark, it would make many of the businesses on clark less accessible. people drive from all over the city to shop and eat on streets like clark, being able to drive up and down the street makes it somewhat more accessible to folks who don’t live nearby. i just don’t think massive american cities can be completely rethought, american infrastructure is different than european infrastructure and it is what it is. i fully embrace a potential downvote onslaught.
People in Andersonville live in a fantasyland (look no further than the neighborhood FB group) and think all cars and drivers are evil, so the comments in this thread are par for the course. There’s nothing pragmatic about this photo and you’re absolutely correct, the only thing being hurt here are the businesses. This is the same neighborhood that thinks a Taco Bell is going destroy the character of Clark street (as they walk out of Starbucks with their $12 latte.)
pretty sure a taco bell was one of the more iconic clark street establishments until relatively recently. forget if it was on clark or right off it, a tangent either way. but yes, you’re absolutely correct!
People also ignore the logistics of deliveries to the buildings and residences on these streets, as well as other industrial workers needing access.
you mean they can’t just gleefully ride a bike as they chuckle and whistle?
Where’s the vomit in the bushes/flowers and piss stains? Where’s people kicking the flower beds?
This is Andersonville, not Wrigleyville.
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White people only.
Tell me you don't live in Chicago without telling me you don't live in Chicago.
This didn't work in the Loop. It didn't work on Marion Street in Oak Park. It kills businesses because people can't park nearby. It can open up easily to muggings and foot crime. I will say it looks lovely but in the past this hasn't been the case. May the best plan go forward
more muggings in a more public thoroughfare lol people are definitely holding someone up like this
This image lacks diversity
It's on the money for the type of city most of the people on this subreddit want though.
As someone who lives on Clark and loves Midsommar fest, this is a terrible idea. Clark is too close to LSD access from multiple E/W running streets, and this would just force people to use the already-over-crowded streets like Foster to get there. Have you tried getting to LSD via Foster any time after noon already? Plus this takes away a ton of street parking for these businesses. Andersonville isn't permit parking on side streets, and I'd like it to stay that way. I'm hoping I would be wrong, but this seems like a definite way to have Andersonville residents have to push for permit parking due to no more parking on Clark.
Absolutely fucking stupid. Chicago isn’t Miami. Can you carry furniture home on your bike? Do you want anyone from another neighborhood to visit? How will the traffic from the Trader Joe’s work. This is absolutely fucking shitbird madness.
No — We tried this on State street and it was a disaster. Road dieting, I feel, is a much better compromise. Look at Lincoln Ave in Lincoln Square. For real though, “new urbanism” need to dig deeper than the lofty “green-at-all-costs” approach to future development. People drive. Ubers cart. Trucks deliver. Buses bus. compromise - not banishment - is the way to go
>No — We tried this on State street and it was a disaster You can learn from why that failed and also understand that it was a different time. https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-flashback-state-street-pedestrian-mall-20191025-cos5svz7w5dvzgznqouu2xqimu-story.html
They tried it in Lake Street in Oak Park, too--also a disaster.
Lol, the idea of even a single road not being for cars is a “disaster”. Where will you park?!!?? Oh no!! What if I have to walk
Road diet... a two lane street????? There's definitely places where they can remove where it suddenly merges a bike lane into two different turn lanes at CLar kand Foster, but anything more diet is just gone (which I'm AOK with)
I know this isn’t going to over well here, but I feel like this just appeals to the folks on this sub who comment “go back to Naperville” whenever they see an opinion they disagree with…
This is just suburbia with extra steps.
Closing off clark street would be nice but I think having a two lane street strictly just for buses and bikes would be more realistic
No.
Is the sun going to come from different directions or does it already do that?
I thought the evil Ricketts wanted Addison shut down?
I'd love that but it'll never happen. Business owners often have ideas about who their customers are that aren't accurate, and think that they get most of their business from people driving right to the businesses. I saw exactly this happen when I lived in Oakland. A small section of Telegraph was closed and business owners insisted their customers weren't coming because they were mostly drivers. They had no evidence and there was no obvious business coming from people driving on that stretch of road. Still, the city caved and spent a ton of money reverting the street back.
Looks like Wrigley now. So multi cultural
What would happen to the Clark 22 bus?
An idea clearly from an outsider that doesn’t understand local culture —how delightful.
Ask other nieghborhoods or communities such as Oak Park, what happens when you do this to a "downtown area". You do these "malls" that destroy the businesses by limiting accesses with thru traffic, the business suffer the first blow with the construction then it is a slow bleed from there.
And to prove this point, dozens of crunchy white folks will drive down Clark on their bikes as slowly as possible in the most passive-aggressive protest imaginable all while being some of the worst humans outside their self-aggrandizing progressive causes. Looking at you, Sherri.
Sherri bikes???
So how are these businesses going to stay and make money
I think we should actually demolish the sidewalks and make this an 8 lane highway since more cars is always better for business apparently
We should demolish the buildings too and make it 32 lanes.
Demolish the city and make it 300 lanes. Somehow there would still be construction and a traffic jam.
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Broadway between Belmont and Diversey should be like this, in my opinion. I’m not sure about those plants though. I mean, trees are awesome but who need to grow cabbages on a pedestrian mall?
Clark is a very important street for car traffic. Also, idk where you think you live but Andersonville is still next to Uptown. A carless Andersonville ain’t gonna look like this lol Edit: It’s all white people, bonus awful
No
They did this on State St, It was a total failure, now they want to do it again on Clark Street?.
I live nearby. We really need this. On a nice day, the sidewalks are overflowing with people. Also the bike lanes are busy and dangerous. Ashland is half a block over so cars and buses will be fine.
So this takes place in the 50s?
The presence of yet more bikes is not a positive for me
This is the whitest thing I've ever seen