The density of a city and the transportation infrastructure that serves it generally evolve together. As population density changes, the infrastructure adapts to provide an appropriate, cost-effective, efficient mix of options for getting around town.
From its founding through the 1950s, the city of Chicago became increasingly dense. It was planned and developed around the largest network of streetcars that has ever existed. There was an electric streetcar line on almost every street, and there could be no development without one.
In the 1950s automobiles and buses replaced streetcars and the city's population began to decline, sprawling out into the suburbs. Taxpayers fled, while spending to build and maintain roads ballooned as we replaced streetcars with the most expensive and least efficient transportation option on the menu: the private car. The result is some of the worst traffic congestion in America. While the suburbs have continued to grow, by 2010 the population of the city itself had declined to its lowest point since 1910.
But things have begun to change again. For many, the dream of suburban living has evolved into a nightmare of traffic congestion, parking lots, and strip malls. It's boring. People have been moving back downtown for the convenience and the culture. Dynamic companies have begun relocating to the city center to attract a creative workforce that favors urban living. It's more fun.
In the 1950s automobiles and buses replaced streetcars and the city's population began to decline, sprawling out into the suburbs. Taxpayers fled, while spending to build and maintain roads ballooned as we replaced streetcars with the most expensive and least efficient transportation option on the menu: the private car. The result is some of the worst traffic congestion in America. While the suburbs have continued to grow, by 2010 the population of the city itself had declined to its lowest point since 1910.
But things have begun to change again. For many, the dream of suburban living has evolved into a nightmare of traffic congestion, parking lots, and strip malls. It's boring. People have been moving back downtown for the convenience and the culture. Dynamic companies have begun relocating to the city center to attract a creative workforce that favors urban living. It's more fun.
The transportation infrastructure needs to accommodate and encourage greater density and continued economic development. We need a growth-oriented strategy that brings more people and fewer cars into the Loop every year--more commerce and less congestion. The system we have today was designed for the era of suburban flight. It’s out of sync with the future of Chicago.
It’s time for an upgrade to a modern transportation infrastructure that’s in time with the great city we are becoming.
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I've often thought about streetcars after riding them extensively in Oslo a few years ago. And I think you're right in pointing out Clark St. as an excellent candidate for streetcar. In this corridor, it is vital to make sure density is always there; that the neighbors don't down zone like they did in Lincoln Park and that people could see how streetcars can make a big difference in the urbanism of the city. I think your arguments and the photos on your site make that case very well.
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