Big Plans Afoot for Congress Parkway

One of the streets that welcome thousands of cars barreling into the Loop or fleeing for the suburbs each day is going to get a big makeover.

Construction is expected to start in the spring on a Congress Parkway screetscaping scheme that will transform the street between Wells and Michigan into a gateway to downtown Chicago.

Drawing from the CDOT presentation linked below of what Congress Parkway might look like

Over a year ago we mentioned the plans to light the parkway with LED bollards.  Now we know more about the project.

It includes adding trees to both sides of the street wherever possible, adding trees in the medians where they fit, and a dramatic lighting system.  The lights would take the form of illuminated gateway markers as well as LED floodlights coloring the bordering buildings.

Drawing from the CDOT presentation linked below of what the Auditorium Building might look like

The current, rather hazardous, pedestrian crosswalks would have their stripes replaced by fake bricks, in an effort to make the area more pedestrian-friendly and to remind drivers that they're no longer on I-290, and to slow down in this residential zone.  In addition, there would be places in the median for pedestrians to wait for the next signal change if they're not able to make it all the way across in 40 seconds (the new time to cross). In some places, the road is eight lanes wide.

Also in the plan:

• A new Blue Line subway entrance at Dearborn Street
• New crossing signals with countdown timers
• New street furniture (newspaper machines, benches, etc...)
• New median planters
• Wider sidewalks, where possible
• Reconfigured turning lanes (some added, some removed)
• A crossing signal for the blind at Congress and Wells
• Many more trees (Elm, Ginko, Oak, London Planetree, Honeylocust, Hackberry, Kentucky Coffeetree)
• A barrier between the sidewalk and the street where it crosses under the Chicago Board of Trade
• Trellises supporting climbing vines in areas too narrow for other landscaping

Page 27 of the CDOT presentation highlights two city-owned pieces of land -- one on the northwest corner of Clark and Congress, and the other at the southeast corner of Congress and Plymouth.  It then shows examples of public plazas.  Does this mean that these surface parking lots could become something better, a la Pritzker Park (334 South State Street)?  We'll keep out fingers crossed.

You can read more about the plan here: Congress Parkway improvement project

A grand entrance to Chicago

A hundred years after the Burnham plan for Chicago was laid out, another piece that plan may become a reality. CDOT is working on a plan to make Congress Parkway in the Loop more grand, and in the process, more pedestrian-friendly.

Right now, Congress between Wells and Michigan Avenue is a big flat slab of tarmac with speeding cars and pedestrians in peril.  It is a psychological divider between the pedestrian-friendly Loop and the pedestrian-friendly South Loop.  But the street, itself, is something of an adventure to cross.

The CDOT plan is to make the street look more like a city street and less like an expressway.  The idea is to snap drivers coming in from the Eisenhower Expressway out of their daze and make them realize that they're in the city now and it's time to slow down.

The ideas call for new planters, new landscaping, more trees, and changes to the pavement to make it more than obvious that there are a dozen pedestrian crossings.  Changes in traffic signal timing and a reorganization of turn lanes are also in the works.

The Burnham plan envisioned Congress Parkway as a grand boulevard -- a major entrance corridor to the city.  This project will go a long way toward making that a reality.  It also includes decorative lighting of the buildings and infrastructure in the area -- a lighting scheme that could be tied into the renovated lighting coming to Buckingham Fountain.

Part of the $20 million needed for the project will come from federal congestion funds.  The rest looks like it will have to be ponied up by the city.

Another goal of the project is to draw more restaurants and cafes to the Congress corridor and the residential development that frequently follows them.