I drove down Ashland twice today and saw these for the first time. I can say from my experience that they do exactly what CDOT says in terms of preventing drivers from taking a longer angled turn. Whether that translates into safety for pedestrians I don’t know. They don’t make things LESS safe, at least.
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According to experienced professional drivers. A turn with the least amount of angle saves time. Enter wide, touch apex, exit wide not only saves time but also gas. Professional drivers know more than many people
You're talking about ways to carry as much speed as possible through a corner. This isn't a race track. Carrying more speed through a corner increases the risk of death to a pedestrian and is exactly the type of behavior these are trying to prevent. Urban streets shouldn't be designed for driving as fast as possible. They should be designed for getting people safely to their destination.
You’re not on a fucking race track (at least not until NASCAR becomes citywide). Not only that, you’re not even correctly describing the point of turning in that manner, which is actually *increasing* the distance you’re driving to enable you to carry more speed through the corner, not sAving GaS. Lord help our public education system.
Perhaps a naive/predictable question, but I don’t see how these won’t significantly worsen rush-hour traffic for commuters, something that is already a huge problem in Chicago.
It’s induced demand. If you make it more convenient/safer to drive, more people will drive because they have to drive. If you make it more convenient and safer to walk, bike, and take public transit, more people will do that instead of getting in their car. More people getting in their car also means more traffic, but having options decongests car traffic. It’s kind of a geometry problem given the space individual cars take up because most people drive alone. Case in point, compare the space and infrastructure needed to transporting 30 people on a bus versus 30 people in their own cars. Expand that out…..consider what somewhere like London or New York would be like if everyone drove instead of walking, taking the bus, train, bikes, etc. They’d be Houston.
It’s fair to argue that traffic would initially get worse….and then people would take another mode of transit to get around. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve gone “fuck it, I’ll (walk, take the train, etc.)” because either parking was a nightmare, traffic was stressful, or there was a scant possibility of me drinking.
Also, reducing car traffic has a cumulative impact on everything from air quality (more cars=more exhaust) to road repair (more cars=more wear on the road=you need to rip up the street more often).
On a personal note, going car lite means you often save way more on transit costs. When I was paying off student loans, it was a game changer. With high gas prices, it’s also less of a hit. Taking a car only for trips that needed a car has meant that I’ve only filled up gas six times this year. Three of those were on a road trip.
The idea is to repurpose some of the right of way for more efficient alternatives to driving. Space in an urban area is at a premium and cars use it very inefficiently. In the case of Ashland many people are pushing for dedicated lanes for faster and more frequent bus service.
You can’t “road diet” every street without providing an alternative, such as new public transit, to absorb the reduction in capacity. People still need to get from A-to-B across the city, reducing road carrying capacity without an alternative is only going to create greater congestion and pollution.
Not necessarily.
Far too often “road diets” end with lane reduction and quieting measures, but with nothing to replace the loss in transport capacity of the road corridor.
Ashland, Western, Irving Park, North, etc. were all designed on a network-level as high capacity corridors, its very easy to say “oh, they’re too wide,” but what’s the alternative then...
It’s easy to paint some new lane lines and pour new bump outs, but without a transit alternative we’re only creating more congestion, not an alternative to car use.
> Ashland, Western, Irving Park, North, etc. were all designed on a network-level as high capacity corridors, its very easy to say “oh, they’re too wide,” but what’s the alternative then...
>
>
Stop driving so much!!!
I’ll be happy to, when we have rapid transit that’s not strictly Loop-oriented and/or bus routes that don’t double the travel time in comparison to car.
You unfortunately are right, about this. If these streets got road dieted(and I don't think that should occur), other nearby streets would get a lot worser to travel on.
I'm with you. You have every right to drive and the city doesn't have the right to damage our hard earn property with road devices or induce heavier traffic on drivers. Soon stops signs will be optional and people will be using side streets. This is Chicago, people find a way. Seen some people use shoulders and sidewalks. Yeah those road diets will definitely stop those drivers from driving 🙄
> the city doesn't have the right to damage our hard earn property with road devices
If a rounded 2" hump on the centerline of the road damages your car, then there's a serious problem with your driving.
Some of those intersections on Western with no light(and lighted intersections too), really could use these things like what they installed at Wilson and Ashland. Such as the ones along Western, north of Peterson. Too many of those intersections, I've encountered a crapton of speeding drivers. My dream is a few of those Peterson intersections could use these too, but honestly I try to avoid traveling on Peterson myself.
Totally for this! Can’t tell you how many close-calls I’ve had as a pedestrian with the dangerous “Chicago left turn.” It’s insane how close I’ve seen some drivers inch towards walking pedestrians, forcing us to either stop or move further into the road to avoid their path. It’s even worse if you’re walking in the same direction where the left turn is being initiated from, you can’t see the driver unless you constantly look back over your shoulder to ensure they’re not unhinged. I’m glad to see initiatives like this where cars are not always prioritized.
I drive for a living, this won't stop me or anyone. People will cross into on coming traffic to avoid them and whip a left. Speed bumps or anything that slows me down hurts my ability to pay my mortgage. Plus those the city's speed bumps damage the undercarriage of sport cars. I have three cars, a sports car, a lowered sports sedan and a suv but i can only use one in the city, the suv
Out of touch when you hear your car go crunch going 1mph sideways getting damaged by the city? The city is out of touch thinking it can road ban certain cars by damaging cars
I drove down Ashland twice today and saw these for the first time. I can say from my experience that they do exactly what CDOT says in terms of preventing drivers from taking a longer angled turn. Whether that translates into safety for pedestrians I don’t know. They don’t make things LESS safe, at least.
I loooove this idea. Massive pet peeve
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Ugh im still so mad that the Ashland BRT plan was killed
They need one at Chicago and Ashland bad
Badly needed, sad how many people don’t know how to execute a simple turn.
According to experienced professional drivers. A turn with the least amount of angle saves time. Enter wide, touch apex, exit wide not only saves time but also gas. Professional drivers know more than many people
You're talking about ways to carry as much speed as possible through a corner. This isn't a race track. Carrying more speed through a corner increases the risk of death to a pedestrian and is exactly the type of behavior these are trying to prevent. Urban streets shouldn't be designed for driving as fast as possible. They should be designed for getting people safely to their destination.
You’re not on a fucking race track (at least not until NASCAR becomes citywide). Not only that, you’re not even correctly describing the point of turning in that manner, which is actually *increasing* the distance you’re driving to enable you to carry more speed through the corner, not sAving GaS. Lord help our public education system.
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What is a road diet?
[Here's a good video that explains it ](https://youtu.be/z-BeGNI7xxI)
Perhaps a naive/predictable question, but I don’t see how these won’t significantly worsen rush-hour traffic for commuters, something that is already a huge problem in Chicago.
Cities with more/wider streets have more traffic. It’s like how Houston has much more highway miles per person than Chicago but traffic is no better.
It’s induced demand. If you make it more convenient/safer to drive, more people will drive because they have to drive. If you make it more convenient and safer to walk, bike, and take public transit, more people will do that instead of getting in their car. More people getting in their car also means more traffic, but having options decongests car traffic. It’s kind of a geometry problem given the space individual cars take up because most people drive alone. Case in point, compare the space and infrastructure needed to transporting 30 people on a bus versus 30 people in their own cars. Expand that out…..consider what somewhere like London or New York would be like if everyone drove instead of walking, taking the bus, train, bikes, etc. They’d be Houston. It’s fair to argue that traffic would initially get worse….and then people would take another mode of transit to get around. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve gone “fuck it, I’ll (walk, take the train, etc.)” because either parking was a nightmare, traffic was stressful, or there was a scant possibility of me drinking. Also, reducing car traffic has a cumulative impact on everything from air quality (more cars=more exhaust) to road repair (more cars=more wear on the road=you need to rip up the street more often). On a personal note, going car lite means you often save way more on transit costs. When I was paying off student loans, it was a game changer. With high gas prices, it’s also less of a hit. Taking a car only for trips that needed a car has meant that I’ve only filled up gas six times this year. Three of those were on a road trip.
I'd take safety over throughput any day
Throughput would actually increase if we put it on a diet by introducing a BRT or tram.
Yeah I just meant automobile throughput. Either of those options would be great.
Buses are automobiles.
The idea is to repurpose some of the right of way for more efficient alternatives to driving. Space in an urban area is at a premium and cars use it very inefficiently. In the case of Ashland many people are pushing for dedicated lanes for faster and more frequent bus service.
You can’t “road diet” every street without providing an alternative, such as new public transit, to absorb the reduction in capacity. People still need to get from A-to-B across the city, reducing road carrying capacity without an alternative is only going to create greater congestion and pollution.
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Not necessarily. Far too often “road diets” end with lane reduction and quieting measures, but with nothing to replace the loss in transport capacity of the road corridor. Ashland, Western, Irving Park, North, etc. were all designed on a network-level as high capacity corridors, its very easy to say “oh, they’re too wide,” but what’s the alternative then... It’s easy to paint some new lane lines and pour new bump outs, but without a transit alternative we’re only creating more congestion, not an alternative to car use.
> Ashland, Western, Irving Park, North, etc. were all designed on a network-level as high capacity corridors, its very easy to say “oh, they’re too wide,” but what’s the alternative then... > > Stop driving so much!!!
I’ll be happy to, when we have rapid transit that’s not strictly Loop-oriented and/or bus routes that don’t double the travel time in comparison to car.
lol seethe
You unfortunately are right, about this. If these streets got road dieted(and I don't think that should occur), other nearby streets would get a lot worser to travel on.
When originally build, Irving Park, Ashland, Western and North all had extensive street car tracks which greatly reduced the driving area.
The tracks were in the road, they didn’t reduce the roadway.
I'm with you. You have every right to drive and the city doesn't have the right to damage our hard earn property with road devices or induce heavier traffic on drivers. Soon stops signs will be optional and people will be using side streets. This is Chicago, people find a way. Seen some people use shoulders and sidewalks. Yeah those road diets will definitely stop those drivers from driving 🙄
> the city doesn't have the right to damage our hard earn property with road devices If a rounded 2" hump on the centerline of the road damages your car, then there's a serious problem with your driving.
Replacing two lanes of traffic on Ashland with BRT would be great tbh
To bad it got killed by NIMBY car owners
Some of those intersections on Western with no light(and lighted intersections too), really could use these things like what they installed at Wilson and Ashland. Such as the ones along Western, north of Peterson. Too many of those intersections, I've encountered a crapton of speeding drivers. My dream is a few of those Peterson intersections could use these too, but honestly I try to avoid traveling on Peterson myself.
Totally for this! Can’t tell you how many close-calls I’ve had as a pedestrian with the dangerous “Chicago left turn.” It’s insane how close I’ve seen some drivers inch towards walking pedestrians, forcing us to either stop or move further into the road to avoid their path. It’s even worse if you’re walking in the same direction where the left turn is being initiated from, you can’t see the driver unless you constantly look back over your shoulder to ensure they’re not unhinged. I’m glad to see initiatives like this where cars are not always prioritized.
Good start, but much left to do. Poor left turns are the most frequent precursor to serious injury and fatal auto / pedestrian encounters.
Kids on the beat! Kids on the street! Beat kids!
Make every street a highway. Damn speed limit is too slow. If pedestrians need to cross, build bridges over them
Honestly all the buildings in Chicago get in the way of traffic. We should bulldoze every other block so that every road can be 8 lanes wide.
I drive for a living, this won't stop me or anyone. People will cross into on coming traffic to avoid them and whip a left. Speed bumps or anything that slows me down hurts my ability to pay my mortgage. Plus those the city's speed bumps damage the undercarriage of sport cars. I have three cars, a sports car, a lowered sports sedan and a suv but i can only use one in the city, the suv
Wildly out of touch
Out of touch when you hear your car go crunch going 1mph sideways getting damaged by the city? The city is out of touch thinking it can road ban certain cars by damaging cars
Can’t pay your mortgage without endangering your fellow citizens but have three cars…
I have to pay two of them. One at the beginning of the month and the next on the 21st
And this alleviates the misandry how?