CDOT Takes Another Crack at Upper Randolph

The Chicago Department of Transportation is going to once again try to straighten out the traffic mess that is East Upper Randolph Street.  The street, which climbs between Millennium Park and the Aon Center/Blue Cross/ Prudential Plaza streetwall is a nightmare for tourists and locals alike.

That's because whether looking at a map or just navigating on instinct, it makes perfect sense that Randolph would continue the city's street grid eastward from Michigan Avenue and connect with Lake Shore Drive.

Of course, it doesn't.

What it does do is make a blind 90-degree turn and come to a dead end in the heart of the New Eastside.

How confusing is this?  Well, on a warm summer afternoon there can be such a flood of confused suburban daytrippers that they actually cause their own traffic jam getting into, turning around, and getting back out of the dead end.

But you don't have to be an Okie from Muskogee to have trouble here.  I have a photo somewhere of an articulated CTA bus that got caught in this vehicular trap, and had to be yanked out with a tow truck.

To make things worse, this is no longer an industrial neighborhood.  There are several thousand people living there, and crossing the streets in their own backyard is becoming increasingly dangerous as more and more drivers unfamiliar with the neighborhood blow through the asymmetrical stop signs.

I used to live in the middle of this mess, and had a front-row view of it from my bedroom window.  Some days it was fascinating.  Others, not so much.

So, it was with some interest that I received an e-mail from Alderman Reilly's office recently detailing CDOT's plans for the area.  I'm going to paste Reilly's note, and the CDOT diagrams below.

Will the plan work?  Well, trying something is better than trying nothing.  But the problem is that this is a dead end.  There are only two ways to actually fix it:

1. Actually complete the long-studied, but very expensive, project to connect North Harbor Drive with East Upper Wacker Drive.  This has been promised by politicians for decades, but nothing has ever come of it.  
2. Put up some very large "Dead End" signs.  And by that I mean signs that actually read "DEAD END."  Not No Outlet, or Cul-de-Sac, or No Thru Traffic, or whatever the current politically correct version of "Dead End" is.  Hardly anyone knows what those mean, and no one takes them seriously.  "DEAD END" is universally understood and feared.  It's the one thing that will keep people out who don't want to go in there in the first place.

Here is Alderman Reilly's e-mail:

The upcoming improvements under this neighborhood initiative include:

New Bike Lanes on Upper Randolph between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive:

At the Alderman's direction and expense through additional Menu funds, CDOT's bicycle program engineered a number of pavement marking improvements for Upper Randolph Street between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive. These improvements include the extension of the eastbound bike lanes on the north side of Upper Randolph Street from Columbus Drive to just west of Stetson Avenue. Shared lanes were recently installed from the end of the old bike lanes down to Michigan Avenue.

On the south side of Upper Randolph Street, between Stetson Avenue and Columbus Drive, the existing eastbound bike lane has been relocated 8 feet off the curb line to keep school or charter buses servicing Millennium Park from parking in the bike lane. The warning signs have been installed in conjunction with the pavement marking recommendations.

Improvement to Intersection of Upper Randolph and Field Blvd:

The Alderman's office fields numerous reports of vehicles failing to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk in the east leg of the intersection at Upper Randolph and Field Boulevard.

This dangerous intersection will be "tightened-up" by shifting the crosswalk and stop line on the west approach approximately 35 feet to the east. This will improve driver compliance with the posted stop signs and encourage drivers to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk.

The City will also be installing new accessible pedestrian ramps, crosswalks and intersection pavement markings at this relocated crosswalk.

Improvement to Intersection of Upper Randolph and Harbor Drive:

Alderman Reilly also receives chronic complaints of vehicles that fail to yield to pedestrians at the intersection of Upper Randolph and Harbor Drive. This intersection will be reconfigured to include a painted median on the curve to provide a buffer between opposing travel lanes. The painted median will also provide an area for pedestrians to stand while waiting for a gap in oncoming traffic - and will encourage slower travel speeds through the narrowing of the adjacent travel lanes.

The City will also be installing additional warning signs to alert drivers to the approaching curve in the road and the presence of pedestrians crossing at the upcoming intersection.

Finally, CDOT recommends the removal of the stop sign and stop line for southbound traffic on Harbor Drive, because the intersection does not meet the necessary stop sign warrants and is inconsistent with the eastbound approach of Upper Randolph that has no stop sign.

There is a stop sign for southbound traffic on Harbor Drive - but eastbound traffic on Randolph is not required to stop at this corner. As a result, pedestrians gain a false sense of security that vehicles will stop at the crosswalk. The Alderman has introduced an ordinance to repeal this stop sign to improve pedestrian safety at the intersection of Randolph and Harbor Drive.

These improvements are scheduled to begin on October 18th and the project is expected to last for 8 weeks. Alderman Reilly is very pleased to announce this exciting project, which will finally address the many complaints we receive regarding traffic and pedestrian safety in the New Eastside community.

Here are the CDOT schematics and plans.  As always, click the pics for larger versions:

More Information About the Wacker Drive Reconstruction

We're learning more about the upcoming reconstruction of North and South Wacker Drive between Randolph Street and Harrison Street.

We first mentioned the rebuilding of Wacker Drive back in November, and now that the April, 2010 start date is fast approaching, it's time to take a closer look.  I wasn't in Chicago at the time of the big 2001-2002 rebuilding of East and West Wacker Drives, but people who have been here longer than I say it was an awful time to get around downtown.

Drivers, and especially commuters, should expect much of the same this time around since at the same time North and South Wacker are being reconstructed, CDOT is also renovating Congress Parkway, and IDOT is rehabbing the Congress Parkway Bridge (Eisenhower Expressway/I-290), and repaving the Ike around the Circle Interchange.

But these things must be done.  It's been 55 years since this portion of Wacker was built.  Time and 60,000 vehicles a day haven't been kind to it.

Work begins April 1, and is expected to last until the end of 2012.  For most of the road, construction will be limited to utility work at first.  But April 1, 2010 is also the date of the first big shock of the project -- the closure of the Congress Parkway interchange ramps.

The way Congress Parkway connects to Franklin Street changes dramatically.  Coming into the Loop and taking the right exit for northbound Franklin Street will now loop you under D'Angelo Park and land you on the left side of Franklin, instead of the current surface merge into the right side of the street.  Click the map to see the new configuration in detail.

Getting back onto I-290 will only be possible from Congress Parkway, Wells Street, and southbound Lower Wacker Drive.  You will no longer be able to do half a cloverleaf and use Franklin as a turn-around to get out of the city as quickly as you came.

This also means that the tour buses that like to use the city-designated tour bus holding zone (with their engines illegally idling all day) on Franklin will have to find a new place to belch.

CDOT published a helpful guide a couple of weeks ago, and here are the highlights and a useful map we created:

• Phase One: Starts January 1, 2011 between Randolph Street and not quite Madison Street.  The ramp to Lower Wacker will be removed and replaced with a landscaped median.
• Phase Two: Roughly between Madison Street and Monroe Street.  Construction will take place during 2011.  The existing ramp to Lower Wacker will be replaced by a one-way ramp leading downward.
• Phase Three: Roughly between Monroe Street and Jackson Street.  Construction expected during 2012.  The Lower Wacker ramp in front of the Willis Tower (233 South Wacker Drive) will be removed and replaced with a landscaped median.
• Phase Four: Construction between Jackson Street and Van Buren Street in 2012.
• The Mystery Phase: This will be a redevelopment of Oscar O. D'Angelo Park.  It should be quite nice when done, with lots of new trees and public areas.  But we've labeled it the Mystery Phase because it doesn't appear on the CDOT timeline, but based on other things we've read it could start in April, 2010.  When we find out for sure, we'll let you know.

But all of the work won't be on the surface.  Below ground, Lower North and South Wacker Drives will receive a number of structural improvements, including an increase in the clearance height for trucks by over a foot.

More notably, however, are thick walls and barriers separating lanes of through traffic from local delivery traffic.  It is also possible that some of these barriers are intended to protect the local skyscrapers from subterranean truck bombs, like the nearly four-foot-thick wall planned to run in front of the base of the iconic Willis Tower.

A few other things caught our eyes while inspecting the CDOT documents:  Two references to "Abandoned Garage" beneath 311 South Wacker Drive.  This may not mean there's an actual abandoned garage beneath the skyscraper, but may just be obsolete entrances to the existing garage.

There was also and a note that the park just south of 300 South Wacker Drive will be walled off from the public on the lower level.  Hopefully there will be some way to get to it from above.

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

Status Update: CTA Red Line Grand Station

If you're one of the thousands of people who have been detoured off State Street in the last few months, here you can see why -- there's a massive gaping hole in the street.  It's the nearly total rebuilding of the CTA's Red Line station at Grand Avenue (521 North State Street).  You're spending $67 million on the project, which is the station's first renovation in 66 years.  I couldn't find an anticipated completion date on the CTA's main web site, and the special site for journalists appears to have disappeared since the new main site went online.  If anyone knows the date, post it in the comments section below.

What is Hubbard's Cave?

Every day millions of people driving around Chicagoland listen to the local traffic reports on TV or the radio.  Hundreds of times a day, traffic reporters reference a place in Chicago called "Hubbard's Cave."  Travel times in and out of the Loop are calculated based on the location of this landmark.  But remarkably few people really know what it is, or what it looks like.

(The entrance [or exit] of Hubbard's Cave at West Wayman Street)

Many people are correct when they state that Hubbard's Cave is the place where interstates 90 and 94 go under Hubbard Street in West Town.  But there's a lot more to Hubbard's Cave than a simple overpass.

Hubbard's cave runs for a quarter of a mile from West Hubbard Street to West Wayman Street.  Unless you're stuck in traffic, in a car it flashes by in the blink of an eye since there are so many other things to keep your eyes on at that critical salmon run in the highway.  But up top, there's quite a lot to see.

(There's no sign of it at the surface, but traffic is humming through Hubbard's Cave beneath this parking lot.)

More than just a street underpass, Hubbard's Cave is a triple-decker infrastructure sandwich that passes beneath railroad tracks, parking lots, even entire warehouses are perched over this most vital of Chicago's motor arteries.  Now and then there are gaps in the roof allowing people to peek down into traffic.  Or more often -- allowing the traffic below brief glimpses into shafts of sunlight from above.

The earliest reference to "Hubbard's Cave" we could find in local newspapers was from 1962, and it's clear from the context that the name was already in common use by the public.  Back then what we now call the Kennedy Expressway was known as the Northwest Expressway and people traveling the route were in much more peril than today's travelers.

(Hubbard's Cave passes beneath five city streets and seven sets of railroad tracks.)

That's because of the "cave," itself.  It earned its name because its size made it unusually dark for an underpass segment of a freeway.  So drivers entering the underpass needed a few seconds for their eyes to get used to the darkness.  Then, less than a minute later, they'd be blinded by the sun as they emerged from the other end.

The name, obviously, comes from Hubbard Street above.  But there is some evidence to show that it may be WGN Radio's Irv Hayden who coined the term and made it famous.  He was 720's helicopter traffic reporter, best known for occasionally landing next to freeways and helping stranded motorists push their cards to the shoulder.  It was his use of the term that spurred city officials to do something about the "cave"-like nature of the road.

(A glimpse of the traffic through a gap in the roof.)

It's remarkable by modern standards to realize that this underpass, and perhaps many more like it, were unlit.  There were no lights underneath the bridges and viaducts that make up the cave.  It was originally thought that car headlights would be enough to successfully navigate the passage.

That changed in 1962 when the city of Chicago spent $160,000 to fix the day-night-day problem for drivers.  According to a letter to the editor in the August 26, 1964 edition of the Chicago Tribune, the city spent $20,000 covering the walls with high-gloss paint to reflect light, and another $140,000 on lights so that drivers' eyes wouldn't have to make such painful adjustments from light to dark and back to light again.

(Construction of what would become Hubbard's Cave clipped off the northeast corner of this warehouse.)

Edward Reiter, the man who spearheaded this project when he was chief engineer of the City of Chicago's Division of Subways and Superhighways (what a great department name!), lobbied to have the name of the underpass changed to "Reiter's Daylight Passage" since it was he who turned the "cave" into something else.  But, as we all know, nearly 50 years later the name remains the same.

(The other end of Hubbard's Cave.  Nature tries to reclaim the parking lot, but the plants don't realize they're not on terra firma.)

Millions of tourists must be right

It's something of a burden to bear.  For the thousands of people who live in the New East Side not a day passes without hundreds, sometimes thousands, of tourists wandering their streets asking how to get to the lakefront and Navy Pier.

Long lines of cars snake into, and then back out of, the cul-de-sacs and private driveways of the New East Side as legions of tourists ignore the few tattered signs put up to direct them.  Once an articulated CTA bus got stuck back there and it took the better part of 12 hours to get it turned around.

The opening of Millennium Park only made things worse.  After all -- it only makes sense that the city's front lawn would connect to the lake and eventually on to Navy Pier.  But more than once I have seen a frustrated tourist raise an angry fist to a local when told, "you can't get there from here."

Well, some day maybe they can.

With the impending destruction of Daley Bicentennial Plaza to make way for the new Chicago Children's Museum, there are finally some serious talks about linking the parks and the lakefront in that area. it cost $20 million to do the same thing at 11th Street.  How much it will take farther north remains to be seen.  But a committee is starting work on it, and maybe there will be some logical relief soon.