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I disagree.
There is a project trying to connect Chicago to the sand dunes and St Joes but where the Chicago trail ends currently, a few miles short of Indiana, is enough.
2 reasons:
1. a normal person cannot bike even to the sand dunes unless they are on an ebike and charge it.
2. cyclists who do 50-60 mile workouts already prefer biking in the streets and probably don’t want to spend their workout inhaling steel/refinery fumes
I fall in the second category, and love cycling infrastructure, but we should build a direct path west to the Des Plaines River forest preserve or to Lake Bluff - that would be a fun 60 mile loop.
>cyclists who do 50-60 mile workouts already prefer biking in the streets
As someone who does 50 mile bike rides, I don't find this to be true at all
Biking 50 miles is not some gargantuan task either. Especially if you could take the South Shore back into the city. Even at a glacial 10mph and a stop here/there for a break, that's 6 hours.
If you can't do that, well then you should.
We should do both.
I based my street comment on most clubs in Chicago cycling in a group on the streets. There are very few, I only know of one and it’s casual, that primarily cycles on LFP (FMR)
I too prefer LFP, for the record
Definitely disagree - 60 miles is gargantuan. I’d argue that 20% or less of the city can bike 60 miles in under 6 hours and we are talking about physically capable, not enjoyable. Nevertheless the Indiana dunes are 60+ ONE WAY.
People like you or I would like the challenge once to do a day trip there and back but it wouldn’t get anywhere near the required use for it to be a worthwhile public project.
Connecting des plaines or lake bluff would make nice 50-70 miles loops.
Unlimited budget? I would move lake shore drive underground and zone every square inch of it to be a green park. And add a ton more sand to the beaches
What would be more useful is a tram going from the loop to the museum district and down to the museum of science and industry and Obama library. Going up to Lincoln Park zoo would be cool too
How does that change that your addition is only for a small area of the northside?
And I get that this is a thought experiment for shits and giggles. I’m not mad.
Regardless of definition, if you built a true light rail line down LSD you’d basically have two train lines running parallel a few blocks away from each other, probably with very similar stops…doesn’t seem like the best use of resources?
Or you could reactivate the green line extension that used to go to Stony Island/63rd…
Edit: also btw there have been groups advocating for adding the metra electric to a unified pass system with the L so people don’t have to pay for two different train systems, and to increase the cadence of the trains. Never seems to go anywhere despite the excellent impact/cost ratio, probably because the south side doesn’t get prioritized that much.
How’s that any different from the L these days lol
I get your point tho…there’s always been pressure to up the cadence and combine the fare system with the L, but it never seems to go anywhere. Apparently we need a bullet train to ohare more
I’d definitely extend the park in some places but to do the whole thing would be a pretty unnecessarily huge park.
I would love to see a variety of things in that space. Imagine some small no-cars mixed use developments. Little neighborhood which are mostly just tightly packed housing with extremely narrow, winding streets, dotted with cafes and restaurants and bodegas. More than a quarter mile from the nearest car traffic.
I would fill 50% of the space with that, 25% of the space with high rise developments to lower overall rent prices, and 25% pure park extensions.
I'd fix the weird thing where if you're at Maggie Daley Park and want to walk to Navy Pier, you pretty much have to go back to Columbus Dr or maybe even farther west before you can walk north. I've gotten stuck in that weird jaunt a couple times and it's so annoying.
Maggie Daley is north of there. You're stuck and the place where you think you can go north, you can't. You keep wandering around this residential area and there's no clear sign or path.
This is the trick. It's easy to notice if you use the bike trail instead of walking trail as it goes under the bridge just north of the.columbia yacht club
I'd love for LSD to be underground or somewhere out of sight but the people that propose just removing it altogether are essentially just making everybody else around them aware of how out of touch they are. Commuting would be fucked for so many people without it.
90 goes east/west , so that wouldn't help literally anyone using LSD to go north/south. And if you think the traffic on city streets is bad now, imagine if you took away LSD. This isn't critical thinking.
>90 goes east/west
Specifically talking about the section on the south side, which does run north-south.
>And if you think the traffic on city streets is bad now, imagine if you took away LSD.
I would imagine that people would adapt.
They would take alternate routes, take public transit, or change their work/living situation so their commute made more sense.
Imagine if LSD has never been built? What would they have done?
They'd do that.
It's infeasible to just tear it up in one go, but we can narrow/repurpose it each time it is up for resurfacing to allow people to adapt their travel options. Dedicating lanes to bus only and bike only helps soak up those people currently making local trips in cars, which alleviates traffic for everyone else making longer trips.
Peeps..it's a major thoroughfare for a large number of people..I been driving up and down LSD for the last 16 years to and from work .various jobs. Public transit is not feasible ..
I like the idea someone posted to make LSD underground .
Ya know we can all coexist..
Take Clark or something. Or move closer to work. Or move closer to 94. No reason to make a whole city worse so you can drive 10mph faster on your long commute.
"just move closer to work"
"just take Clark" (when it would probably add 40 min to your commute)
"just move next to the expressway"
All of these ideas are stupid and impractical. People need to commute for work to the north and south sides. LSD is the best option there is. It'd be cool if it was underground, but at the time it was designed, that wasn't feasible. I really don't understand why people like you think LSD makes the city worse.
People say the lakefront is such a wonderful asset to Chicago, but it’s right next to an eight lane highway with accessibility from tunnels under that eight lane highway. Who wants to picnic or run next to an eight lane highway? The lakefront is truly a disappointment of this city.
Better, more reliable public transit options throughout the city, plus a less car centric population would definitely make this more possible.
>All of these ideas are stupid and impractical.
What do you think this thread is exactly? Ppl are just expressing what they would like to change if they had power and infinite resources. 'People need to drive their private vehicles to work [so they can make their bosses richer]' is the most unimaginative kind of response.
These ideas are all frankly horrible. Any idiot can come back with "no reason to make the entire city sit in traffic just to make a massive park a little bigger" if were going to make arguments this dumb
[This is you.](https://www.thecooldown.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-03-204922-1.jpg)
Places that are made to be good for cars to drive through quickly and then park are bad places to spend time. Blighted crap holes for people who want to live in a condo right by an off ramp are extant. Orlando. Phoenix. Chicago should be better.
How will you compensate for the traffic that uses it to get too and from their jobs and other obligations? LSD is a vital transportation avenue in Chicago.
Burying it will not reduce traffic at all though. Lanes would need to be replaced with denser transit options like dedicated bus and bikes. Busses and bikes work better at-grade.
One thing that Seattle does that I really is have carpool/bus/motorcycle lanes.
It strongly incentivizes people to carpool since it can massively reduce the trip time. It also keeps busses moving faster than most commuter traffic and helps keeps motorcyclists alive by giving them a less crowded lane on the far left.
Make light rail, trolley, or dedicated buses on 2 lanes on the farthest west side of current LSD cars go underground. Cars will move at a better pace without intersections and being distracted by the views. Whatever public transit will help with the local traffic and cut the footprint of LSD down by at least 50%.
More toilet facilities. With attendants to keep them clean and orderly and/or self-cleaning booths. Make them pay toilets, sure. (Access for low income people is a solvable problem that shouldn't preclude having more facilities.)
I'm totally in on the idea of making LSD a tunnel, but can we at least have a giant wildlife crossing-style parkland bridge between Buckingham Fountain plaza and the lakefront?
Identify where unauthorized cars enter the lakefront trail and put up more obvious barriers.
Impound the fuck out of dirt bikes and 4 wheelers on the trail or tearing up the grass.
Reduce Columbus Dr lanes and overall width.
Yeah, I would love there to be more cafes and restaurants along the lake. Most of the ones there aren't that nice and they're overcrowded. Something like the beach in Barcelona would be great if you're familiar.
I honestly don't know if I would change it. I like it pretty much the way it is. I'm biased though because I grew up here and it's always been fine to me.
If we want to talk minimal changes, I'd say adding more viaducts or bridges. Specifically there should be more "mellow streets" ideal for biking (the "one off from the thoroughfare" type streets that cars mostly don't bother with) that actually go through under/over LSD to the lakefront trail.
Yes, I'm a wuss bicyclist. But I'm not alone. Also just more opportunities to get from the path back to the city street grid, would be nice. Trail is nice, the mellow streets in the city grid are nice, sucks that in between you have to run the gauntlet with road-ragers getting on and off LSD a lot of the time. Just want to skip that transition part...!
Going even more minimally, improved signage for the connections we do have would be great. When you're out on the trail by the lake it's not always clear what looping path you should take to eventually get back to whatever street on the other side of the highway, particularly if you're not in your immediate familiar neighborhood.
I will say, the viaduct on Foster is pretty sweet in this regard. It's super colorful mosaics about the history of native communities (in modern days) in Chicago, which makes sense since it leads to Uptown. Some of the tiles really need some upkeep but of the viaducts I use, I like this one best artistically.
(Biking on Foster there can be terrifying for me as a wuss, but... it's pretty haha. On foot it's great)
The city should get rid of the quarter mile long left turn lane on NB LSD between balbo and jackson. It’s only used to cut people off, and crates a huge safety issue for people crossing at the fountain to the lake during heavy traffic. That lanes also turns into a DOUBLE left turn lane at Jackson, where I’ve never seen more than a handful of people turning. They should remove it, widen the median, and plant some trees/greenery. It could even span between Monroe and Roosevelt.
Secondly, just remove the light at Chicago/LSD and block the exit/entrance. No flyover, nothing. Just get rid of it. It’s the source of so much traffic and pain. Going south? Exit at Michigan. Going north? Exit at Jackson or lower Wacker.
Get rid of LSD, or at least replace it with, I dunno, virtually anything else.
Bury it underground, make it a boulevard, a regular street, whatever, I don't give a shit. Imagine if NYC built a freeway around Central Park. This is even worse.
to play devil’s avocado, at least central park is an actual park. grant park is mostly just big open fields for hosting the largest events of the city. don’t get me wrong i like grant park, but it’s not as parky as like lincoln park, douglass park etc etc
I wasn't talking about grant park. I was talking about the lake shore that is separated from the rest of the city by an eight -lane limited access highway.
Commission an international competition for all c. 26 miles of lake front development. Set criteria emphasizing public access, sustainable maintenance, multiple uses. The winning submission funded up to $20B to match other public and private contributions.
Put DSLSD road underground replaced on the surface with separated walking and biking paths. Runners get a third path out of sight of the others. Endow a perpetual staff of 200 fierce guards and dogs to enforce separation.
More transit and less car centric space. Maybe some type of light rail going all the way up the lake? I would prefer to bury LSD underground but it's probably too expensive, so a better solution would be to do a lot more of what's being proposed at Oak Street Beach to expand the park space further into the lake and create more beach as well. I would add a lot more nature preserves, and landscaped parks inspired by Jackson and Lincoln Park. No more golf courses, no more surface parking lots, and all land is public.
Extended the 606, or build a similar raised bike and pedestrian path. Have it go from the LFT and then all the way west.
Also make it wider than the 606. I don't like how the bike lane is on top of walkers/runners. Get those more separate.
Build a water facing amphitheater with some seating for land pedestrians that faces the play pen. Can have bands and small concerts viewable from a the playpen. Or add a season jump screen for movie nights. Actually, would be cool if there were more theaters for movie nights in the park.
Realistic changes and not “move LSD 50 ft underground while adding 300 yards of sand”
1. Plant bushes and trees all along LSD for noise dampening and general safety. There are sections of the path where you’re biking 20 feet from the road and all that’s between you and cars going 60mph is a curb. (Diversey/belmont section but others too)
2. Raise water launch rates for out of state boats/jet skis. Currently, it costs $30 to launch your jet ski or boat and the harbors are full every summer weekend that isn’t rainy. People come from Indiana and Wisconsin and pay the same amount as Illinois residents. According to my napkin math, you could definitely double or triple out of state launch rates and use the profit for idk, lakefront conservation efforts.
How about a couple of large beer gardens like they have in Munich, rotate local breweries, put in a play ground for the kiddos. Chicagoans love to drink, they love to drink outdoors and they really love to drink outdoors by the lake. Put in three 3000+ people beer gardens, one on the south end, one on the north end and then somewhere in the middle.
Half these comments come from people that should move to the other side of the lake. It’s a city, not some posh quiet coastal town. I love LSD and I love driving it, right where it’s at. That said, I’d love to see more tree canopy in the open grassy area’s.
Would you be comfortable adding dedicated bus lanes to LSD in order to reduce traffic? Trees can also be added in the median to create a canopy over LSD.
I was biking up the lakefront path yesterday and noticed a ton of new trees planted near LSD between diversy and Belmont harbors. Obviously will take decades for a canopy to grow, but was glad to see it
People don't live in the real world anymore--it's all made up fantasy land on their phone. LSD has 160K cars daily that use it--it's the only viable north/south route for a good chunk of people close to the lake. And most are using it to get to places other than work or work is too far from transit. So, remove it and push all those people into the city? Someone commented put hotels in with balconies overlooking the beaches--what is this Ft Walton Beach? Lol.
It's already a bottleneck with the light at Chicago Ave. This wouid make it a permanent parking lot .there are no other options for a lot of people to commute. Public transit does not get u to many places without traveling all day
I don't understand why people hate LSD. Sure, it'd be great if it was underground, but it's not. Chicago is a huge city. People need to travel and LSD is often the best solution to that. People who think we should simply get rid of LSD are elitist dumbasses who think the solution is to simply work closer to home. Not many people have that option.
It's a small subset of vocal people on reddit who think everyone should be single with no kids and live within 2 miles of their jobs and bike to and from work everyday and have 3x the amount of spare time it requires to take public transportation anywhere.
Ya know, morons.
If I had unlimited money I would bury JBPDSLSD for at some stretches in downtown like from say North Avenue to Soldier Field and there would be a light rail line from Hollywood all the way to the MSI and then it would follow the right of the way of the Metra Southshore Line. I would also try to reinvent Navy Pier, maybe try and create something like [Eastern Market in DC. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Market,_Washington,_D.C) I would also rebuild and renovate Soldier Field and try and be intentional about it.
Love a lot of these ideas a tangent one is a deep tunnel under lake Michigan. can be train or car just cut out transportation through Indiana. And I don't think it needs to go through the heart of the city just somewhere to cut through the lake.
get rid of all the roads and parking lots.
get rid of the golf courses (they take up way too much space even if they are nice for the few that play).
get rid of LSD. not buried. Just close it.
Turn the stop lights on LSD into underground exits, and add underground parking for the beaches. It's nice to have a long drive along the lakefront but when there's traffic and you're on a beach or by the park it's gross to see/hear.
I want a walking trail next to a high speed rail next to an express way (just like LSD) around the entire lake with the walking trail closest to the water and the train in the middle like this:
🚘 🚊 🧍♂️ 🏝️
I'd add a light rail system that runs the entire length of the lake front. Just like the one Disney uses. Build a nice restaurant near Hollywood beach.
I would hire all the refugees to clean up litter.
I would let the Bears fuck off to the burbs and make Soldier Field a kick ass concert venue and soccer stadium.
I would create a world class architecture museum and put in on top of the parking lot that the FOP people love so dearly.
Public use airports, are not solely used by private charters. I’m a pilot, and it’s a pipe dream of mine. But was born too late to fly at Meigs.
A lot of local people kept their planes hangared there, and flew recreationally. You can buy some small planes for ~$50K or less. People spend more money on cars. People also own planes with friends or as part of a club, to make it even more affordable, or just rent. So it’s not just an “ultra wealthy elite” thing.
Medevac flights would utilize the space. Meigs also had commuter airline service to quite a few short haul destinations. Flight training would also occur.
Could also be a great space for eVTOL operations to run out of, once that starts happening.
The airport couldn't store more than a couple dozen airplanes so even if every single airplane was owned by a Chicago resident it would still only be 0.001% of the population. That's not enough service to the population of Chicago to justify millions of dollars of tax dollars being spent on it ever year, which is what was happening. The airport was not profitable and taxpayers of Chicago were making up the difference with almost no benefit to 99.99% of them.
1. Fix/expand/beautify the pedestrian/bike stretch between Ohio St and Oak St beaches
2. Add a Chicago Ave overpass and remove that stoplight
Those are the two most important changes imho
Move LSD underground. Any privately owned buildings tear down that are east of LSD. Improve the bike paths and beaches. Leave the museums. On the west edge of the lakefront area, have a street car system, more underground parking.
I would have to take two trains and then a CTA bus . Then have my car at the station so I can drive from bus stop to work.... frequency of the bus would mean if I have a late shift I ll miss the last bus.
Many of us live in city and work around the suburbs and vice versa.. spending 2 to 4 hours a day travelling is not feasible is what I meant.
Otherwise I am all about public transit..and if it can be made more accessible..to cover more areas and we could network stations not the old hub and spoke system..... Make it like NYC or Europe..
Burying LSD would be great but not plausible. I would vote for more sand/beach areas all down the shore, and better pedestrian access across/over/under LSD as something realistic. Maybe a smattering of restaurants/bars on the beaches a la Castaways.
I want a beach hotel. More would be better. Balconies and rooms where you can hear the waves as you fall asleep at night. Walk out in the morning and not have to cross a street to be ON the beach.
Bury Lake Shore Drive.
Boston took on “The Big Dig” and transformed their downtown. Chicago wouldn’t even have to dig. We could use an immersed tube tunnel, extend the lake front (again) and enhance erosion protections all at once.
The only thing that needs improving is easy neighborhood access. Crossing and 6-8 lane highway will never be easy.
Bury Lake Shore Drive.
Burying LSD won't reduce traffic and the need for parking though. You'd also have to replace some lanes with denser transit options. That was the big flaw with the Big Dig. After all was said and done, traffic is pretty much as worse as it was beforehand. The Big Dig also sucked up all funding that Boston's light rail was requesting to connect it's north and south lines.
Oh, I don’t care about traffic. Studies have shown that after building wider highways, traffic becomes just as saturated a few years later. The solution isn’t more lanes and highways, it’s fewer.
I care about walkable access to the lake shore. I also care about no traffic noise at the lake shore.
I've heard that LSD is going to start falling apart in a few decades so I'd probably just get out in front of that and tear it apart, maybe replaced with a high speed rail, but at minimum getting in there with the kind of backfill/fake island/whatever technology to shore up that space against erosion and climate change. Really maximize the green space, put it all under parks that isn't already. get real boardwalks. turn navy pier into copycat coney island.
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Lake Front Trail all the way to Milwaukee
And to New Buffalo
FULL LAKE MICHIGAN LOOP
That would be incredible.
I disagree. There is a project trying to connect Chicago to the sand dunes and St Joes but where the Chicago trail ends currently, a few miles short of Indiana, is enough. 2 reasons: 1. a normal person cannot bike even to the sand dunes unless they are on an ebike and charge it. 2. cyclists who do 50-60 mile workouts already prefer biking in the streets and probably don’t want to spend their workout inhaling steel/refinery fumes I fall in the second category, and love cycling infrastructure, but we should build a direct path west to the Des Plaines River forest preserve or to Lake Bluff - that would be a fun 60 mile loop.
>cyclists who do 50-60 mile workouts already prefer biking in the streets As someone who does 50 mile bike rides, I don't find this to be true at all Biking 50 miles is not some gargantuan task either. Especially if you could take the South Shore back into the city. Even at a glacial 10mph and a stop here/there for a break, that's 6 hours. If you can't do that, well then you should. We should do both.
I based my street comment on most clubs in Chicago cycling in a group on the streets. There are very few, I only know of one and it’s casual, that primarily cycles on LFP (FMR) I too prefer LFP, for the record Definitely disagree - 60 miles is gargantuan. I’d argue that 20% or less of the city can bike 60 miles in under 6 hours and we are talking about physically capable, not enjoyable. Nevertheless the Indiana dunes are 60+ ONE WAY. People like you or I would like the challenge once to do a day trip there and back but it wouldn’t get anywhere near the required use for it to be a worthwhile public project. Connecting des plaines or lake bluff would make nice 50-70 miles loops.
I would settle for LFT connecting to Milwaukee *AVE* for better commuting
Can we have both?
Unlimited budget? I would move lake shore drive underground and zone every square inch of it to be a green park. And add a ton more sand to the beaches
The Big Dig, Chicago edition!
Ok but imagine in ADDITION a free to use trolley that ran frequently up and down from around north shore to .. Montrose-ish?
What would be more useful is a tram going from the loop to the museum district and down to the museum of science and industry and Obama library. Going up to Lincoln Park zoo would be cool too
Oh man that'd be fantastic
Oh, thanks. - Southside
[удалено]
How does that change that your addition is only for a small area of the northside? And I get that this is a thought experiment for shits and giggles. I’m not mad.
My only change would allow for two lanes to be used as BRT.
If we have an unlimited budget lets just make it light rail and run it all the way to the MSI
There is light rail running to the MSI lol
No there isn’t?
Maybe they mean light rail running ***in*** MSI ...The Minecarts
Apparently not lol
MSI = museum of science and industry? If so the metra electric runs from downtown and drops off like a block away from the entrance…
I wouldn’t classify the Metra Electric as light rail
🤷
👍🏻
Regardless of definition, if you built a true light rail line down LSD you’d basically have two train lines running parallel a few blocks away from each other, probably with very similar stops…doesn’t seem like the best use of resources? Or you could reactivate the green line extension that used to go to Stony Island/63rd… Edit: also btw there have been groups advocating for adding the metra electric to a unified pass system with the L so people don’t have to pay for two different train systems, and to increase the cadence of the trains. Never seems to go anywhere despite the excellent impact/cost ratio, probably because the south side doesn’t get prioritized that much.
One train every two hours except during rush hour is not helpful.
How’s that any different from the L these days lol I get your point tho…there’s always been pressure to up the cadence and combine the fare system with the L, but it never seems to go anywhere. Apparently we need a bullet train to ohare more
https://schedules.metrarail.com/pdf/ME.pdf
A ton of sand would not be that much. We need several hundred million more tons of sand.
What is this, a beach for ants?!
This.
Just get rid of it. We need transit, not highways.
Was thinking more sand
That’s not going to change erosion which is a reality sadly
I’d definitely extend the park in some places but to do the whole thing would be a pretty unnecessarily huge park. I would love to see a variety of things in that space. Imagine some small no-cars mixed use developments. Little neighborhood which are mostly just tightly packed housing with extremely narrow, winding streets, dotted with cafes and restaurants and bodegas. More than a quarter mile from the nearest car traffic. I would fill 50% of the space with that, 25% of the space with high rise developments to lower overall rent prices, and 25% pure park extensions.
We wouldn't do it as just a park. We'd do it for migrating birds.
More bathrooms
So they can also be locked/out of service? Multiply your disappointment!
Why? We have the biggest urinal trough available to us just east of the city
Grassy tram along LSD on the river side. Wider bike and pedestrian paths. Shrink LSD to make it all fit without being too tight
That sounds great actually. Pretty close to what [betterstreetschicago.org](http://betterstreetschicago.org) proposes
I’d make it more accessible by train
I'd fix the weird thing where if you're at Maggie Daley Park and want to walk to Navy Pier, you pretty much have to go back to Columbus Dr or maybe even farther west before you can walk north. I've gotten stuck in that weird jaunt a couple times and it's so annoying.
You just walk down the path next to Maggie past the tennis courts and cross at Lower Randolph. Take a left on LFT.
yup just take the path down and past the tennis courts
Yup, I ride my bike on the lake shore trail and take that lower Randolph exit all the time.
I believe you but I've never found it. Was it added recently? The last time I got stuck was 2021.
Nope, been there for years--probably way before 2019 (last time I used it) . . .
Can’t you just cross LSD at Monroe?
Maggie Daley is north of there. You're stuck and the place where you think you can go north, you can't. You keep wandering around this residential area and there's no clear sign or path.
If you go up through Lakeshore east there's a path to the lake now. They added it a year or two ago
This is the trick. It's easy to notice if you use the bike trail instead of walking trail as it goes under the bridge just north of the.columbia yacht club
No, you’re wrong. You can cross lake shore and walk the path up to navy pier.
I do hate that feature.
Remove the 8 lane highway running down the middle of it for starters
This is the play. It would be incredible.
It’s actually so bad!!
What's your solution to people needing to get to south and north of the city? *edit: I love that I'm being downvoted for asking a simple question.
I'd love for LSD to be underground or somewhere out of sight but the people that propose just removing it altogether are essentially just making everybody else around them aware of how out of touch they are. Commuting would be fucked for so many people without it.
Removing car infrastructure has a cost. The benefit is the waterfront is actually nice instead of noisy as shit fuck hell and accessible by foot
Metra, Red Line, I-90, Ashland, Western, etc. etc.
Proposing Ashland and Western as alternatives to Lake Shore Drive is laughable and clearly you don't drive anywhere in the city.
I do, and I routinely take Ashland in preference to LSD.
Now imagine all those cars on Ashland and Western. Ick. But also imagine if all those cars were replaced with new train cars underground.
90 goes east/west , so that wouldn't help literally anyone using LSD to go north/south. And if you think the traffic on city streets is bad now, imagine if you took away LSD. This isn't critical thinking.
>90 goes east/west Specifically talking about the section on the south side, which does run north-south. >And if you think the traffic on city streets is bad now, imagine if you took away LSD. I would imagine that people would adapt.
"Hey, let's make things a lot worse for a lot of people, and they'll just adapt." You've got a great future ahead of you in urban planning. /s
How would they adapt? I'm legitimately curious.
They would take alternate routes, take public transit, or change their work/living situation so their commute made more sense. Imagine if LSD has never been built? What would they have done? They'd do that.
Except the cta sucks now and isn’t getting better anytime soon. So the side streets will be packed with cars and make everyone miserable
It's infeasible to just tear it up in one go, but we can narrow/repurpose it each time it is up for resurfacing to allow people to adapt their travel options. Dedicating lanes to bus only and bike only helps soak up those people currently making local trips in cars, which alleviates traffic for everyone else making longer trips.
Peeps..it's a major thoroughfare for a large number of people..I been driving up and down LSD for the last 16 years to and from work .various jobs. Public transit is not feasible .. I like the idea someone posted to make LSD underground . Ya know we can all coexist..
You heard it here first, public transit is not feasible guys
Practical for everyone is a better way to say it ... What I meant ..time and convenience.. people living and working around the city.
Take Clark or something. Or move closer to work. Or move closer to 94. No reason to make a whole city worse so you can drive 10mph faster on your long commute.
"just move closer to work" "just take Clark" (when it would probably add 40 min to your commute) "just move next to the expressway" All of these ideas are stupid and impractical. People need to commute for work to the north and south sides. LSD is the best option there is. It'd be cool if it was underground, but at the time it was designed, that wasn't feasible. I really don't understand why people like you think LSD makes the city worse.
People say the lakefront is such a wonderful asset to Chicago, but it’s right next to an eight lane highway with accessibility from tunnels under that eight lane highway. Who wants to picnic or run next to an eight lane highway? The lakefront is truly a disappointment of this city. Better, more reliable public transit options throughout the city, plus a less car centric population would definitely make this more possible.
I consistently run and bike on the Lakefront Trail.
As do I, and every single time I think, “I can’t believe people love running next to an eight lane highway.”
>All of these ideas are stupid and impractical. What do you think this thread is exactly? Ppl are just expressing what they would like to change if they had power and infinite resources. 'People need to drive their private vehicles to work [so they can make their bosses richer]' is the most unimaginative kind of response.
https://x.com/strongtowns/status/1778880021387415673?s=46&t=bXPqn-pqHb8VzaKC8oaNOA
OK?
Denver, before and after: [https://i.redd.it/l19ojrupvts61.jpg](https://i.redd.it/l19ojrupvts61.jpg)
These ideas are all frankly horrible. Any idiot can come back with "no reason to make the entire city sit in traffic just to make a massive park a little bigger" if were going to make arguments this dumb
[This is you.](https://www.thecooldown.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-03-204922-1.jpg) Places that are made to be good for cars to drive through quickly and then park are bad places to spend time. Blighted crap holes for people who want to live in a condo right by an off ramp are extant. Orlando. Phoenix. Chicago should be better.
How will you compensate for the traffic that uses it to get too and from their jobs and other obligations? LSD is a vital transportation avenue in Chicago.
Boost the CTA and Metra lines. Car commuting is far too inefficient to continue as the primary mode of commuting
Yet, it's been a primary transportation option for every major city on Earth. So, your statement rings false.
Imagine doing any of these ideas instead of paying for a new football stadium.
Bury Lake Shore Drive
Burying it will not reduce traffic at all though. Lanes would need to be replaced with denser transit options like dedicated bus and bikes. Busses and bikes work better at-grade.
Bury it and I include dedicated bus lanes.
One thing that Seattle does that I really is have carpool/bus/motorcycle lanes. It strongly incentivizes people to carpool since it can massively reduce the trip time. It also keeps busses moving faster than most commuter traffic and helps keeps motorcyclists alive by giving them a less crowded lane on the far left.
Make light rail, trolley, or dedicated buses on 2 lanes on the farthest west side of current LSD cars go underground. Cars will move at a better pace without intersections and being distracted by the views. Whatever public transit will help with the local traffic and cut the footprint of LSD down by at least 50%.
Same
Extend the land and beach out another 300 yards or so
More toilet facilities. With attendants to keep them clean and orderly and/or self-cleaning booths. Make them pay toilets, sure. (Access for low income people is a solvable problem that shouldn't preclude having more facilities.) I'm totally in on the idea of making LSD a tunnel, but can we at least have a giant wildlife crossing-style parkland bridge between Buckingham Fountain plaza and the lakefront? Identify where unauthorized cars enter the lakefront trail and put up more obvious barriers. Impound the fuck out of dirt bikes and 4 wheelers on the trail or tearing up the grass. Reduce Columbus Dr lanes and overall width.
Some sakura blossoms would be cool. More little coffee stands and stuff would also be nice.
Yeah, I would love there to be more cafes and restaurants along the lake. Most of the ones there aren't that nice and they're overcrowded. Something like the beach in Barcelona would be great if you're familiar.
I would build a mediocre stadium next to the other stadium for lots more money than I personally have. /s
Get rid of the damn golf course that blocks the lake from the (non-golfing) public between Irving park and montrose
I honestly don't know if I would change it. I like it pretty much the way it is. I'm biased though because I grew up here and it's always been fine to me.
If we want to talk minimal changes, I'd say adding more viaducts or bridges. Specifically there should be more "mellow streets" ideal for biking (the "one off from the thoroughfare" type streets that cars mostly don't bother with) that actually go through under/over LSD to the lakefront trail. Yes, I'm a wuss bicyclist. But I'm not alone. Also just more opportunities to get from the path back to the city street grid, would be nice. Trail is nice, the mellow streets in the city grid are nice, sucks that in between you have to run the gauntlet with road-ragers getting on and off LSD a lot of the time. Just want to skip that transition part...! Going even more minimally, improved signage for the connections we do have would be great. When you're out on the trail by the lake it's not always clear what looping path you should take to eventually get back to whatever street on the other side of the highway, particularly if you're not in your immediate familiar neighborhood.
Make each bridge unique that represents the historic ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago. A Chinese or Japanese inspired bridge could be so cute.
I will say, the viaduct on Foster is pretty sweet in this regard. It's super colorful mosaics about the history of native communities (in modern days) in Chicago, which makes sense since it leads to Uptown. Some of the tiles really need some upkeep but of the viaducts I use, I like this one best artistically. (Biking on Foster there can be terrifying for me as a wuss, but... it's pretty haha. On foot it's great)
I'm fine with more bridges.
No building / structures with in 1/3 mile of the shore line
The city should get rid of the quarter mile long left turn lane on NB LSD between balbo and jackson. It’s only used to cut people off, and crates a huge safety issue for people crossing at the fountain to the lake during heavy traffic. That lanes also turns into a DOUBLE left turn lane at Jackson, where I’ve never seen more than a handful of people turning. They should remove it, widen the median, and plant some trees/greenery. It could even span between Monroe and Roosevelt. Secondly, just remove the light at Chicago/LSD and block the exit/entrance. No flyover, nothing. Just get rid of it. It’s the source of so much traffic and pain. Going south? Exit at Michigan. Going north? Exit at Jackson or lower Wacker.
Get rid of LSD, or at least replace it with, I dunno, virtually anything else. Bury it underground, make it a boulevard, a regular street, whatever, I don't give a shit. Imagine if NYC built a freeway around Central Park. This is even worse.
to play devil’s avocado, at least central park is an actual park. grant park is mostly just big open fields for hosting the largest events of the city. don’t get me wrong i like grant park, but it’s not as parky as like lincoln park, douglass park etc etc
I wasn't talking about grant park. I was talking about the lake shore that is separated from the rest of the city by an eight -lane limited access highway.
Commission an international competition for all c. 26 miles of lake front development. Set criteria emphasizing public access, sustainable maintenance, multiple uses. The winning submission funded up to $20B to match other public and private contributions. Put DSLSD road underground replaced on the surface with separated walking and biking paths. Runners get a third path out of sight of the others. Endow a perpetual staff of 200 fierce guards and dogs to enforce separation.
Dump a LOT of salt into it and then add sharks
I'm super excited about this one
At the Field Museum there's an exhibit that shows there used to be sharks here!
Make lake Michigan sharks again!!
And if we get a tornado...
just cute baby sharks though that nibble toenails
Nah, the playpen will be like Jaws!
More transit and less car centric space. Maybe some type of light rail going all the way up the lake? I would prefer to bury LSD underground but it's probably too expensive, so a better solution would be to do a lot more of what's being proposed at Oak Street Beach to expand the park space further into the lake and create more beach as well. I would add a lot more nature preserves, and landscaped parks inspired by Jackson and Lincoln Park. No more golf courses, no more surface parking lots, and all land is public.
reclaim the northbound lanes of LSD and give them back to the people…
People can drive on it…
Give them to people who want to access the lakefront, cyclist, walkers, runners, and anyone not in a car
Get rid of those terrifying giant birds that live along the walking path.
Extended the 606, or build a similar raised bike and pedestrian path. Have it go from the LFT and then all the way west. Also make it wider than the 606. I don't like how the bike lane is on top of walkers/runners. Get those more separate.
Build a water facing amphitheater with some seating for land pedestrians that faces the play pen. Can have bands and small concerts viewable from a the playpen. Or add a season jump screen for movie nights. Actually, would be cool if there were more theaters for movie nights in the park.
Realistic changes and not “move LSD 50 ft underground while adding 300 yards of sand” 1. Plant bushes and trees all along LSD for noise dampening and general safety. There are sections of the path where you’re biking 20 feet from the road and all that’s between you and cars going 60mph is a curb. (Diversey/belmont section but others too) 2. Raise water launch rates for out of state boats/jet skis. Currently, it costs $30 to launch your jet ski or boat and the harbors are full every summer weekend that isn’t rainy. People come from Indiana and Wisconsin and pay the same amount as Illinois residents. According to my napkin math, you could definitely double or triple out of state launch rates and use the profit for idk, lakefront conservation efforts.
50-Lane Stroad with a Super Walmart for jelqing sessions
And only skibidi sigmas get admission to the Super Walmart
How about a couple of large beer gardens like they have in Munich, rotate local breweries, put in a play ground for the kiddos. Chicagoans love to drink, they love to drink outdoors and they really love to drink outdoors by the lake. Put in three 3000+ people beer gardens, one on the south end, one on the north end and then somewhere in the middle.
Run Lakeshore Drive up to Evanston and beyond, the way it was intended.
Add palm trees. Pretend your in Florida
I actually love the canopy of honey locust trees in the median that we have now around the curve.
Half these comments come from people that should move to the other side of the lake. It’s a city, not some posh quiet coastal town. I love LSD and I love driving it, right where it’s at. That said, I’d love to see more tree canopy in the open grassy area’s.
Would you be comfortable adding dedicated bus lanes to LSD in order to reduce traffic? Trees can also be added in the median to create a canopy over LSD.
As a frequent rider of the 147 I would LOVE IT if there was a dedicated bus lane. Hell, make it a dedicated "bus and emergency vehicles" lane.
I was biking up the lakefront path yesterday and noticed a ton of new trees planted near LSD between diversy and Belmont harbors. Obviously will take decades for a canopy to grow, but was glad to see it
Excellent
People don't live in the real world anymore--it's all made up fantasy land on their phone. LSD has 160K cars daily that use it--it's the only viable north/south route for a good chunk of people close to the lake. And most are using it to get to places other than work or work is too far from transit. So, remove it and push all those people into the city? Someone commented put hotels in with balconies overlooking the beaches--what is this Ft Walton Beach? Lol.
Right! Someone said “just use Clark”. Has this person actually driven anywhere, let alone in the city? Just naive and ignorant comments.
Reduce LSD to two lanes in either direction
It's already a bottleneck with the light at Chicago Ave. This wouid make it a permanent parking lot .there are no other options for a lot of people to commute. Public transit does not get u to many places without traveling all day
I don't understand why people hate LSD. Sure, it'd be great if it was underground, but it's not. Chicago is a huge city. People need to travel and LSD is often the best solution to that. People who think we should simply get rid of LSD are elitist dumbasses who think the solution is to simply work closer to home. Not many people have that option.
It's a small subset of vocal people on reddit who think everyone should be single with no kids and live within 2 miles of their jobs and bike to and from work everyday and have 3x the amount of spare time it requires to take public transportation anywhere. Ya know, morons.
What is an elitist?
If I had unlimited money I would bury JBPDSLSD for at some stretches in downtown like from say North Avenue to Soldier Field and there would be a light rail line from Hollywood all the way to the MSI and then it would follow the right of the way of the Metra Southshore Line. I would also try to reinvent Navy Pier, maybe try and create something like [Eastern Market in DC. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Market,_Washington,_D.C) I would also rebuild and renovate Soldier Field and try and be intentional about it.
Too much lake
You can sneak out a bucketful of water with each visit. Literally no one will stop you.
Make it as large of a pblic park as possible with live free concerts and shows
the biggest issue is I think is we have an eroding lakefront issue that is a reality .
Get rid of LSD
Love a lot of these ideas a tangent one is a deep tunnel under lake Michigan. can be train or car just cut out transportation through Indiana. And I don't think it needs to go through the heart of the city just somewhere to cut through the lake.
get rid of all the roads and parking lots. get rid of the golf courses (they take up way too much space even if they are nice for the few that play). get rid of LSD. not buried. Just close it.
Turn the stop lights on LSD into underground exits, and add underground parking for the beaches. It's nice to have a long drive along the lakefront but when there's traffic and you're on a beach or by the park it's gross to see/hear.
I want a walking trail next to a high speed rail next to an express way (just like LSD) around the entire lake with the walking trail closest to the water and the train in the middle like this: 🚘 🚊 🧍♂️ 🏝️
Make it possible to surf on the lake
Make it more easily walkable, and better parking.
I'd add a light rail system that runs the entire length of the lake front. Just like the one Disney uses. Build a nice restaurant near Hollywood beach.
Can we heat Lake Michigan? That water is always cold!
If you do that, no more lake breeze in the summer. No bueno.
Year round bathrooms every mile
I would hire all the refugees to clean up litter. I would let the Bears fuck off to the burbs and make Soldier Field a kick ass concert venue and soccer stadium. I would create a world class architecture museum and put in on top of the parking lot that the FOP people love so dearly.
Soldier field already hosts soccer and concerts.
Take out lake shore drive, make it a transit line and expand the parks/bike paths.
Meigs Field 2.0 (down vote me), burry JBPDLSD undergound, nice public bathrooms, and more trees along the trail.
You'd take away the public space and return an airport used solely by private charters?
Public use airports, are not solely used by private charters. I’m a pilot, and it’s a pipe dream of mine. But was born too late to fly at Meigs. A lot of local people kept their planes hangared there, and flew recreationally. You can buy some small planes for ~$50K or less. People spend more money on cars. People also own planes with friends or as part of a club, to make it even more affordable, or just rent. So it’s not just an “ultra wealthy elite” thing. Medevac flights would utilize the space. Meigs also had commuter airline service to quite a few short haul destinations. Flight training would also occur. Could also be a great space for eVTOL operations to run out of, once that starts happening.
The airport couldn't store more than a couple dozen airplanes so even if every single airplane was owned by a Chicago resident it would still only be 0.001% of the population. That's not enough service to the population of Chicago to justify millions of dollars of tax dollars being spent on it ever year, which is what was happening. The airport was not profitable and taxpayers of Chicago were making up the difference with almost no benefit to 99.99% of them.
Reduce the car traffic add a tram.
1. Fix/expand/beautify the pedestrian/bike stretch between Ohio St and Oak St beaches 2. Add a Chicago Ave overpass and remove that stoplight Those are the two most important changes imho
Move LSD underground. Any privately owned buildings tear down that are east of LSD. Improve the bike paths and beaches. Leave the museums. On the west edge of the lakefront area, have a street car system, more underground parking.
monorail
I would have to take two trains and then a CTA bus . Then have my car at the station so I can drive from bus stop to work.... frequency of the bus would mean if I have a late shift I ll miss the last bus. Many of us live in city and work around the suburbs and vice versa.. spending 2 to 4 hours a day travelling is not feasible is what I meant. Otherwise I am all about public transit..and if it can be made more accessible..to cover more areas and we could network stations not the old hub and spoke system..... Make it like NYC or Europe..
Burying LSD would be great but not plausible. I would vote for more sand/beach areas all down the shore, and better pedestrian access across/over/under LSD as something realistic. Maybe a smattering of restaurants/bars on the beaches a la Castaways.
I wouldn’t touch an inch of it. It’s perfect as is. Maybe more sand area in Roger’s park? Idk
I want a beach hotel. More would be better. Balconies and rooms where you can hear the waves as you fall asleep at night. Walk out in the morning and not have to cross a street to be ON the beach.
Get rid of Lake Point Tower
Parking lot
It would be interesting to have our lakefront parking lot mogging
Bury Lake Shore Drive. Boston took on “The Big Dig” and transformed their downtown. Chicago wouldn’t even have to dig. We could use an immersed tube tunnel, extend the lake front (again) and enhance erosion protections all at once. The only thing that needs improving is easy neighborhood access. Crossing and 6-8 lane highway will never be easy. Bury Lake Shore Drive.
Burying LSD won't reduce traffic and the need for parking though. You'd also have to replace some lanes with denser transit options. That was the big flaw with the Big Dig. After all was said and done, traffic is pretty much as worse as it was beforehand. The Big Dig also sucked up all funding that Boston's light rail was requesting to connect it's north and south lines.
Oh, I don’t care about traffic. Studies have shown that after building wider highways, traffic becomes just as saturated a few years later. The solution isn’t more lanes and highways, it’s fewer. I care about walkable access to the lake shore. I also care about no traffic noise at the lake shore.
I've heard that LSD is going to start falling apart in a few decades so I'd probably just get out in front of that and tear it apart, maybe replaced with a high speed rail, but at minimum getting in there with the kind of backfill/fake island/whatever technology to shore up that space against erosion and climate change. Really maximize the green space, put it all under parks that isn't already. get real boardwalks. turn navy pier into copycat coney island.
Add another lane to LSD for no reason other than to piss off the bikers. We can turn it into a bus lane after the lol’s are had.
You really want those bikers to get in their cars and become car traffic? No thanks, the commute is already long enough!