Narrowing Lake Shore Drive (Chicago, Berwyn: school, taxi, maintenance)

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by gomexico

LSD isn't a "freeway"

I don't know the technical definition of this word as used by civil engineers or whatever, but I would say it's at least pretty damned close to being one in stretches. It's several lanes wide, with a relatively high speed limit, has entrance and exit ramps, and a major artery for a major city.

Originally Posted by gomexico

and it's not "massively wide" given the volume of traffic it carries.

No one has said it is wide for its volume of traffic (everyone seems to agree that narrowing it would mean reducing its volume), but it is certainly wide in many places for a shore-side road that separates a city from the body of water on which it was strategically placed. That's the one thing the OP is right about.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by chirack

Now that I have seen picks of the Embarcadero Freeway I now know why that area was cut off. Lake shore drive is not that impossing for most of it's length and it does not block the view of the lake from other areas. It can present some predestrain problems but if you know where the tunnels/overpasses are no problem. You also can cross it at grade in spots downtown(a bit scary crossing that big a road but not impossible).

At the same time though, the Embarcadero was a lot more porous for pedestrians, because it was much like a regular street at the street level. You didn't go change grade (go underground or above ground) as a pedestrian.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by Maintainschaos

Where would all of those cars go that use LSD everyday...? I mean, what road would you propose would handle those cars otherwise? I don't think it's really that imposing to get to the shore even when crossing LSD; they've done a good job with it at the museum campus. Besides, it really is a beautiful drive.

Part of it is that it pushes people to use something other than their cars and to live closer to their place of work. The other is that drivers find ways anyhow. It's been pretty much verified that any increase in traffic capacity for highways pretty much gets used immediately and makes almost no difference--the converse likely holds for when you narrow a street.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by myrc60

That is the worst idea I have ever heard! Have you ever been to Chicago OP?

I have only once seen a pedestrian cross LSD but she didn't get across it before she was hit in light traffic around midnight. What in the world she thought she was doing I can only guess.

Yea, have you ever been to other cities with prime waterfronts? I understand this is a drastically different idea of how to build a city, but having the main dividing road between the waterfront and neighborhoods be easy to traverse along its entire length does come with pronounced benefits seen in other cities. There is a trade-off here and it obviously would have to go hand-in-hand with various other measures such as better mass transit. The question is how do you imagine the city would work and operate if this change were to occur. The easy answer is to just say there's more gridlock, but is that necessarily true given how traffic studies show capacity at peak times almost no matter how many lanes are given? And if there were more gridlock, how would people change the way they commute? What would the neighborhoods close to downtown and the neighborhoods currently along LSD be like if this were to happen? I'm not saying this is necessarily a great idea, but I think it bears thinking it through since there are benefits and costs to keeping things as they are or narrowing LSD.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

Part of it is that it pushes people to use something other than their cars and to live closer to their place of work.

Why push people to do that? I don't give a good Goddam where people live or how they get to work, it's none of my business.

If you don't want people to drive then encourage them to take buses and trains by making service better, don't discourage them from doing something they already like thus making life more unpleasant than it already is. Give people a break.

[chirack]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

At the same time though, the Embarcadero was a lot more porous for pedestrians, because it was much like a regular street at the street level. You didn't go change grade (go underground or above ground) as a pedestrian.

That was not the problem for that freeway. The problem is it blocks the view! What drives pedestrian traffic is people living near the area. In fact the land from Hyde Park (on the near south side) north to Edgewater (where LSD ends) is some of the most expensive land in the city (esp. the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park) and the areas near the lake to the north are the most dense. Even the impoverished end of lakeshore drive (south shore) is not as bad as some of the worse ghettos in Chicago.

You can't get pedestrian traffic if people don't live in the area (people living in an area are big drivers of that.) and would you pay to have a view of this from your apartment?: File:I-480 from Hyatt Regency ca 1988.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And mind you that image was probably taken from a hotel and from a high floor and you still can barely see the ocean.

How is this a way to treat a land mark:
http://streetswiki.wikispaces.com/fi...152/embfwy.jpg

In the past when air conditioning was less common people used to go the lake and the beaches were even more crowed than today. Driving up lake shore drive was also used as a way to cool off in the 50ies.

Most Chicagans who live near lakeshore drive will have ether a view of an park or the view of lake and you could see over lakeshore drive with maybe a third floor(at worse). You could add more pedestrian crossings, but narrowing it won’t get any more people to use it. Chicago developed differently than SF, the area on the other side of lakeshore drive is parkland and that really limits what can be built there(i.e. No stadiums.). Basically imagine a park from the almost the far south side until the far north side.

[chirack]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

Yea, have you ever been to other cities with prime waterfronts? I understand this is a drastically different idea of how to build a city, but having the main dividing road between the waterfront and neighborhoods be easy to traverse along its entire length does come with pronounced benefits seen in other cities. There is a trade-off here and it obviously would have to go hand-in-hand with various other measures such as better mass transit. The question is how do you imagine the city would work and operate if this change were to occur. The easy answer is to just say there's more gridlock, but is that necessarily true given how traffic studies show capacity at peak times almost no matter how many lanes are given? And if there were more gridlock, how would people change the way they commute? What would the neighborhoods close to downtown and the neighborhoods currently along LSD be like if this were to happen? I'm not saying this is necessarily a great idea, but I think it bears thinking it through since there are benefits and costs to keeping things as they are or narrowing LSD.

Ah well there are a couple of problems.

One in some neighborhoods lake shore drive runs through a park(i.e. While the land to the east of LSD is Park land so is the land to the west...i.e. Grant park, Jackson Park, Lincoln Park). Here is an example:
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q...&ved=0CIIBELYD

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q...&ved=0CIIBELYD


Two it is already used by a number of busses as an express route into and out of downtown.

Neighborhoods close to Downtown are already some of the most expensive areas to live in.

[gomexico]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

It's several lanes wide, with a relatively high speed limit, has entrance and exit ramps, and a major artery for a major city.

No one has said it is wide for its volume of traffic (everyone seems to agree that narrowing it would mean reducing its volume), but it is certainly wide in many places for a shore-side road that separates a city from the body of water on which it was strategically placed. That's the one thing the OP is right about.

I don't think we're describing or have traveled the same "Lake Shore Drive" in Chicago.

[ChiGuy2.5]

Originally Posted by gomexico

I don't think we're describing or have traveled the same "Lake Shore Drive" in Chicago.

There is a couple of red lights south of the fullerton ramps but other than that ChiNaans description is accurate. It does have a freeway feel to it.

As for everyone else saying its an eye sore or its infringing upon our enjoyment of the lakefront. Chicago has one of the most beautiful lakefronts out of any city. Our lakefront bike path is wonderful, so are our beaches. LSD is very functional as-is and without it, our transportation network would suffer. The only other option would be to create a Upper and Lower LSD similar to wacker which would be VERY expensive. Why fix something that isn't broken?

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by ChiGuy2.5

There is a couple of red lights south of the fullerton ramps but other than that ChiNaans description is accurate. It does have a freeway feel to it.

As for everyone else saying its an eye sore or its infringing upon our enjoyment of the lakefront. Chicago has one of the most beautiful lakefronts out of any city. Our lakefront bike path is wonderful, so are our beaches. LSD is very functional as-is and without it, our transportation network would suffer. The only other option would be to create a Upper and Lower LSD similar to wacker which would be VERY expensive. Why fix something that isn't broken?

I agree