Chicago Streetcar Renaissance: Throng defends streetcars against creepy special interests

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Throng defends streetcars against creepy special interests

REIMS, FRANCE
A ginormous arachnid descended on Reims today in a totally gross attempt to stop the progress of electric streetcars. Thousands of citizens took to the streets in defense of fiscal responsibility, walkable urban neighborhoods, convenience, choice, and their growing clean-energy economy, turning away the joint-legged invertebrate. Many simply cried "Ew!" but Joseph Plombier, a local tradesman, suspected that oil and car companies lurked behind the onslaught of the octopedal arthropod. "I reekognize ziss web of de-sep-see-on," he said in a wacky French accent.

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about this blog

I love my neighborhood.

I live in Lakeview in Chicago. We’re close to beautiful Lake Michigan and downtown Chicago. There’s no place I’d rather live. But I’ve lived in enough different places to recognize that our streets are overrun with cars: they’re not inviting for shopping and strolling around, and they’re not safe for biking. Our streets are congested with through traffic and parked cars, and public transit here is buses stuck in traffic.

But this blog is not about problems, it’s about solutions.

Many cities around the world have revived their local economies by investing in walkable urbanism: one pedestrian-priority transit-optimized shopping street at the heart of each neighborhood. We could do that.

Chicago is big enough for one street in one neighborhood that prioritizes shopping and transit over parking and driving.

This blog is not going to make any sense to you unless you’re willing to do three things:

1) Acknowledge that the status quo is suboptimal;

2) Believe that profound improvement is possible; and

3) Learn from other cities, even if you don’t want to live in them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I studied English at Michigan, worked as a carpenter for a couple of years, and went to Sweden for a graduate program in architecture. I lived and worked there for eight years, riding streetcars and biking all over the city year round in protected bike lanes. I lived in downtown New York City for ten years, where I had my own small design firm, DNA, and lived in quiet, walkable neighborhoods free of through traffic. I’ve been in Chicago since 2008.

One thing I learned from my career in architecture is that if you’re waiting for someone to ask you to do what really needs to be done, you’re probably going to wait forever. There are a thousand reasons to hire an architect, but none of them is to optimize the neighborhood, revitalize the city, or transform the nation’s economy.

The Chicago Streetcar Renaissance is not about bringing the old trolleys back to life, it’s about using modern streetcars as a catalyst for bringing new life to Chicago’s neighborhoods. It’s not about the trains, it’s about the people—the lives of the people who live and work and play here.

Introduction

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Throng defends streetcars against creepy special interests

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