Traffic choked chicago (Cicero, Bloomington, Oak Lawn: how much, neighborhood, quality of life)

[linicx]

I hate rush hour traffic. I was in LA for two weeks. As far as I can determine there are only 5 routes in and out of the state. Chicago has more routes than that in and out of the city. There is absolutely no way that Chicago traffic is worse than I-5 on a good day. Chicago rush starst about 6am and abuut 3pm and by 7am and 4pm it is messay but not yet clogged and slowed to 3mph. .

[LakeShoreSoxGo]

LA traffic is a joke, you have to drive everywhere to do something there. Chicago does not have that type of dysfunction.

[linicx]

I agree. I saw more bycicles and police on horseback than I did buses and taxi cabs. I can't say I did not enjoy it, because i did, despite the murder i missed by a few minutes. My daughter lived near Venice Beach at the time and i leearned I loved the ocean. I did not know water could be that ungodly cold in July. Brrrr!

Originally Posted by LakeShoreSoxGo

LA traffic is a joke, you have to drive everywhere to do something there. Chicago does not have that type of dysfunction.

[tonythetuna]

Originally Posted by doublenickels

The "rush hour" in the city of chicago is 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. Mon. through Fri.

huh?

[NYrules]

Traffic around Chicago is intentionally caused misery from its own stupidity. In about 80% of the cases our horrid traffic has nothing to do with the road's design as the overall concept is fine or amount of traffic, more it's the poor traffic signal coordination that causes the problems on surface roads and sometimes bleeds out onto expressways, but there is hope and something you can do to improve your commute. Rarely do you get to experience the pleasure of driving down any given street in Chicago to experience traffic signals which are coordinated in a way to keep traffic moving smoothly and at a safe rate of speed. Currently there are only 2 streets downtown that I have seen which this concept has recently been instituted and that is Ontario Street and Ohio Street from 90/94 over to LSD. In both cases signals are coordinated FINALLY to progress with the flow of traffic. Now here is an example of "coordinated signals" operating during peak rush hour times in a city that's what? Three times the size of Chicago and as you can see the traffic is moving... Slow, but steady for the most part as these signals are designed to change from red to green and back to red in the direction that the one way street is flowing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG1009DYLQI

Here's a better look at how perfectly coordinated signals can keep traffic moving smoothly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrkgTpcyFdg

Chicago's current set up on about 95% of the signals on one ways is to have them all change green at the same time and all change red at the same time which encourages two things: Aggressive Driving, and Speeding as folks know they only have 1 minute of green time along their route, so that said the second all the lights turn green everyone floors it in their cars to make as many lights as they can before they all change back to red again. This also leads to gridlocking at certain key intersections, yet your wonderful aldermen like this design (all red or all green or randomly changing at no pattern) as they say, it keeps traffic moving slow or stopped. Ummm why would we want the traffic to be stopped intentionally? STUPIDITY!

Here's what can be done to improve at least one way's flow. If you see signals that are out of sync with one another meaning your light changes from red to green and as soon as you approach the next one it turns red on you (esp) on one ways, call 311 and explain the signals are not synchronized and PROGRESSING (key word for the operators to understand what you are talking about) with the flow of traffic. This will help them understand that for instance on a street such as Washington Blvd for example at Damen then the next signal to the west being Hoyne, the signals should go as you drive, Damen at Washington, westbound Washington gets green at lets say 1:45:10 PM then Washington at Hoyne changes Washington to green at lets say 1:45:20PM... If you notice the green light in this case at Hoyne and Washinton comes on 10 seconds after the one at Damen. Now they should change back to red in the same fashion. This will keep traffic moving smoothly and at a designated speed limit.

Now on 2 ways, there is not too much that can be done with one exception that is very prevelant in Chicago and that is many of the DETECTION LOOPS in the left hand turning lanes are bad which is what causes the green left turn arrows to come on everytime the signals cycle whether or not there is someone in the left hand turning lanes or not. This wastes precious green time to keep traffic flowing through the intersection and causes a choking basically at most intersections thanks to malfunctioning green left turn arrow's vehicle detector loops. If you see a signal turning on the green left turn arrows even though there are no cars present in the left hand turning lanes and the arrow stays on for like 5-10 seconds or longer call it in to 311 and report that the green left turn arrow is coming on everytime the light is cycling so it can be forwarded onto the CDOT engineers so they can take a look at the problem and possibly either install camera detection (NOT RED LIGHT CAMERAS) or new vehicle detection loops. Once the green left turn arrow problem is fixed at given interesection traffic will be allowed a sooner and longer green light in the opposing direction meaning less back ups at given intersection.

Just ways you can help improve our city.

This can explain what a vehicle detector loop is a little better if you don't understand what they are. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6EpYiR1Mc4

[tonythetuna]

Originally Posted by NYrules

Just ways you can help improve our city.

Don't you live in the suburbs?

[odannyboi]

Please.. Chicago's traffic is completely fine for the size of its population. Traffic in LA was a joke when I went there.. but I didn't really mind it since it had palm trees.

Atlanta was terrible! Getting onto the highway was a nightmare (I looked at my GPS and it took me 30 minutes to go 0.6 miles).

Chicago traffic is fine. Like a previous poster said, if you are innovative, you can snake around bottlenecks (example: if the outbound Kennedy is bad, I take Elston which rides alongside the highway sometimes saving me about 20 minutes).

[Drover]

Originally Posted by NYrules

Traffic around Chicago is intentionally caused misery from its own stupidity. In about 80% of the cases our horrid traffic has nothing to do with the road's design as the overall concept is fine or amount of traffic, more it's the poor traffic signal coordination that causes the problems on surface roads and sometimes bleeds out onto expressways, but there is hope and something you can do to improve your commute. Rarely do you get to experience the pleasure of driving down any given street in Chicago to experience traffic signals which are coordinated in a way to keep traffic moving smoothly and at a safe rate of speed. Currently there are only 2 streets downtown that I have seen which this concept has recently been instituted and that is Ontario Street and Ohio Street from 90/94 over to LSD. In both cases signals are coordinated FINALLY to progress with the flow of traffic. Now here is an example of "coordinated signals" operating during peak rush hour times in a city that's what? Three times the size of Chicago and as you can see the traffic is moving... Slow, but steady for the most part as these signals are designed to change from red to green and back to red in the direction that the one way street is flowing.

[snipped for brevity]

While I agree that better engineering can help, the timed lights like they have in Manhattan is a no-go here. The reason it can be done in Manhattan is because about 80% of the traffic flow is along a single axis. Here you have about equal traffic flow along the two major axes, plus a bunch of diagonals to boot. You can't prioritize traffic flow along one axis here like you can in Manhattan without causing absolute paralysis along the other axis.

[NYrules]

Originally Posted by tonythetuna

Don't you live in the suburbs?

Ummm and your point? Us suburbanites do venture into the city occasionally for things you know like WORK which would put us in the city on a daily basis.

[NYrules]

Originally Posted by Drover

While I agree that better engineering can help, the timed lights like they have in Manhattan is a no-go here. The reason it can be done in Manhattan is because about 80% of the traffic flow is along a single axis. Here you have about equal traffic flow along the two major axes, plus a bunch of diagonals to boot. You can't prioritize traffic flow along one axis here like you can in Manhattan without causing absolute paralysis along the other axis.

Explain Queens and Brooklyn then? Their signals progress just fine as well. Just like out here in the BURBS where we are under IDOT rule. Sorry, but it's 2010 not 1960. Signals can be programmed to keep traffic moving, it's done all over the country EXCEPT here.

Here's Sacramento for you, and what do you know once again perfectly coordinated signals.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y6BNDPoJaQ

Even more sad is that podunk cities like Kansas City are doing this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9usg6P5Ko4k

Here's an even better explanation as to how far advanced we can be now in 2010 or 11 if you want to round up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x34-7bBEuo