CHICAGO | Lincoln Yards

[Khantilever]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Hell no it won't. Are you kidding me?

At least not in the form of people walking to work from their $2 million mansions in Lincoln Park. Lower East Side of Manhattan circa 1912 called, it wants Khantilever back

Lets not kid ourselves and pretend that transit is just superfluous and unnecessary. With the kinds of density they are proposing, it's going to come with massive, massive, massive amounts of parking and massive, massive, massive amounts of congestion with all of the people who will chose to drive there, without a frequent and dedicated transit ROW getting people to and fro.

And again, I'm saying that it would--in the long-term--induce changes in land-use patterns and households in the area. You keep approaching this from the perspective of neighborhoods being fixed in household composition and density. But even if this development were to deliver transit upgrades which make it essentially able to independently supply itself with workers from outside, it would still spur changes in the surrounding areas.

I'm not at all saying that transit is superfluous. And in the interest of finding agreement, I should be clear that ideally I would like to see real mass transit serve this development and others to come along the riverfront. My only issue is the attitude that the development needs to deliver infrastructure such that it doesn't affect its neighbors.

[the urban politician]

^ The fact that it will affect its neighbors is a given.

But you also have some hard core NIMBYism going on around this site, particularly to the east. So the ability to substantially increase density in the surrounding area is limited. And even by doing so, once again transit investments will be necessary.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ The fact that it will affect its neighbors is a given.

But you also have some hard core NIMBYism going on around this site, particularly to the east. So the ability to substantially increase density in the surrounding area is limited. And even by doing so, once again transit investments will be necessary.

There's a lot of potential for increased density along the Clybourn corridor and on Elston. I wouldn't hesitate to level pretty much every structure on Goose Island and start anew. Regardless, the heavy rail w/ its own ROW will need to prelude or immediately follow any major redevelopment in the area.

[Mr Downtown]

Once again, why should taxpayers pay for new transit lines chasing after developers who've purchased land that's cheap? It was cheap because it doesn't have good access!

If you want to build big workplaces and dense residential, choose one of the 102 CTA stations surrounded by vacant land where we're already running trains every few minutes.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

Once again, why should taxpayers pay for new transit lines chasing after developers who've purchased land that's cheap? It was cheap because it doesn't have good access!

If you want to build big workplaces and dense residential, choose one of the 102 CTA stations surrounded by vacant land where we're already running trains every few minutes.

I understand your point, but we're not going to see any serious levels of construction in half vacated neighborhoods until the Lincoln Parks and Bucktowns of Chicago are bursting at the seams.

[Mr Downtown]

Of course not, not as long as rezoning to anything can be done whenever a developer asks. Do we really believe demand for residential and office is so tenuous that it will instead go to another city if developers can't establish new mini-CBDs any damn place they please?

Have a little respect for yourself, Chicago. Don't spread your legs just because some REIT said he might swing by later tonight with some takeout.

[tjp]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ You are way off. If you want to tap the largest talent pool you might as well be downtown.

If you only want to tap into the surrounding area, then at Lincoln Yards you're forced to build CAR-CENTRIC development, because nearly everybody from the local neighborhoods will drive there and they will need to park. How the hell else is anyone going to get there? Friggin 5 people will choose to walk--everyone else will drive--so don't give me that fantasy.

This ain't rocket science. By your arguments the entire CTA L and Metra system was completely unnecessary for downtown to flourish. Transit is needed when density becomes very high.

Has SB indicated many parking spaces there will be? I can’t imagine they’re planning enough to allow a majority of the ~23,000 workers to drive there.

[Randomguy34]

Originally Posted by tjp

Has SB indicated many parking spaces there will be? I can’t imagine they’re planning enough to allow a majority of the ~23,000 workers to drive there.

Sterling Bay says 6,200 spaces for the whole development, not just workers.

Honestly, now wouldn't be a bad time to bring back the Circle Line, since a North/Elston station was planned and it would have connected the Red/Brown/Purple Lines to the Blue Line and Metra. If Sterling Bay is dumping $5+ billion dollars in this development, they better chip in more to infrastructure improvements

[k1052]

Without federal backing the odds of securing the billions needed for a sizable subway are nonexistent.

Other solutions will be needed to address this.

[Mr Downtown]

Circle Line, or any other reasonably direct connection between Red and Blue Lines, simply doesn't get to the heart of this property. Maybe if you strung an aerial tramway from Fullerton Red to Damen Blue. . .

[mark0]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

I understand your point, but we're not going to see any serious levels of construction in half vacated neighborhoods until the Lincoln Parks and Bucktowns of Chicago are bursting at the seams.

A half vacated neighborhood is a blank slate. Lincoln Yards is a gridlocked traffic nightmare right now and there is not even anything on the site yet! Unless there's some secret circle line proposal or new L route to be announced Lincoln Yards is DOA. Buses do literally nothing to ease congestion, they just offer the carless a cheap way to transit.

[mark0]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

Sterling Bay says 6,200 spaces for the whole development, not just workers.

Honestly, now wouldn't be a bad time to bring back the Circle Line, since a North/Elston station was planned and it would have connected the Red/Brown/Purple Lines to the Blue Line and Metra. If Sterling Bay is dumping $5+ billion dollars in this development, they better chip in more to infrastructure improvements

This is the only way to make this plan viable.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

Circle Line, or any other reasonably direct connection between Red and Blue Lines, simply doesn't get to the heart of this property. Maybe if you strung an aerial tramway from Fullerton Red to Damen Blue. . .

The issue isn't "getting to the heart of the property" it's "providing any reasonable heavy transit anywhere near this development. 1 mile proximity to Armitage Brown/Purple doesn't cut it. A North/Elston stop would put most of this property into solid proximity to transit, the only parts far away from North/Elston and the closest parts to the Metra and to the Brown Line. But the important factor here isn't proximity, it's circulation. It's allowing connections to both Blue and Red as well as Brown and Purple and Metra.

[VKChaz]

Sterling Bay says 6,200 spaces for the whole development, not just workers.

Curbed article indicates "at least 6200 spaces." And that seems wildly low. The reality we just don't know, but I suspect number of spaces for the office component would be largely driven by the potential tenants

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

We don't want car centric development. We want transit access. At a certain level of density, just running a bus no longer cuts it. You need something with its own dedicated ROW, which runs frequently.

This.

Besides, the biggest issue surrounding Lincoln Yards is that the streets through and nearby it are ALREADY choked with traffic for many hours of the day, plus with the river crossings, train tracks, the Kennedy nearby, etc., it's just a mess. The brown and red lines are already near or at capacity for many hours per day as well, at least until the Belmont flyover is built, which still only adds a marginal amount during peak hours. And it seems that Sterling Bay certainly wants to have lots of transit access and is talking a great game, but they also seem to only want it if government monies pay for it. They're basically acting like the typical developer, they want to have the public pay for infrastructure while they pocket all the extra $$$ from the benefits of having said transit access.

BRT on Ashland would be a good start, but the only way to reasonably do that would be to eliminate street parking on Ashland as well as probably get rid of much of the median, since there's no way you can eliminate one of the two traffic lanes in each direction. It would simply cause Ashland to be gridlocked at nearly all hours of the day and night as well as cause traffic to flow onto many of the nearby residential side-streets.

Long story short, the Clinton/Larrabee train line is sorely needed.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[west-town-brad]

Was in Toronto this week and couldn't help but think one of their streetcar lines would work well for Lincoln Yards. Especially if you ran it up Kingsbury and then connected it to Elston to form some kind of loop.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by west-town-brad

Was in Toronto this week and couldn't help but think one of their streetcar lines would work well for Lincoln Yards. Especially if you ran it up Kingsbury and then connected it to Elston to form some kind of loop.

If we were willing to dedicate the road space to it sure. This is America however and I think as sufficiently evidenced by this thread that cars are the paramount concern at all times.

[west-town-brad]

Originally Posted by k1052

If we were willing to dedicate the road space to it sure. This is America however and I think as sufficiently evidenced by this thread that cars are the paramount concern at all times.

Well, autos + streetcars live together in the example I was citing. Cars surely are paramount in Canada as well...

[k1052]

Mixed traffic street cars without ROW priority won't fare any better than busses here currently do, probably worse since they can't maneuver around obstructions. I'm a bigger fan of what they did to King St.

[ardecila]

If the streetcar line ran up side streets following the North Branch, it seems like you could install diverters at major intersections to make the street useless for cut-through traffic (you wouldn’t be able to travel more than a block or two before a forced left/right turn). Right now many of these streets are sleepy but a full build out of Lincoln Yards would spill gridlock onto many side streets, so it’s important to preserve the transit advantage.

So, yeah, basically what they did for King St in Toronto. Except it should (hopefully) be less controversial, since the streets up the North Branch are not currently main thoroughfares.

I would like to see it connect to Fullerton on the north end... that way it can serve Brown, Red and Purple Lines with one stop instead of having to awkwardly serve both North/Clybourn and Armitage. Basically one branch going to Fullerton and another going west down Armitage to the Western Blue Line.