The Bridge On Beside the River Chicago - Reconstructing Wells Street

click images for larger view (recommended)

It was a slightly surreal sight.  This may be the only time you get to see the Wells Street Bridge running, not over the river, but parallel to it.

It's all part of a nine-day shutdown of the CTA service over the bridge, whose main span is being completely replaced in two 9-day stretches, between now and March 10 for the south leaf, and again in late April for north.  Here's how it looked before the south leaf was taken out, courtesy of this photograph from our indefatigable correspondent Bob Johnson . . .

photograph: Bob Johnson

The bridge has been closed to vehicular traffic since last November, a project that's expected to last a year.

�In nine days,� said Mayor Rahm Emanuel at a Sunday press conference at the site, �we're going to replace  a bridge that was here for the last 90 years.  Warren Harding was President then, and if I can say, not that great a President . . .�

According to the Historic Bridges website, the Wells Street Bridge, whose main span is 268 feet long, was dedicated on February 11, 1922.  Big Bill Thompson was mayor then, and if I can say, not that great a mayor, but for being a buffoon and a boodler and an enabler of Al Capone, he sure built a lot of important stuff.

CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein noted that the bridge was last rehabbed in the mid-1950's:

Construction crews behind me will replace the trusses and all the steel framing for the lower level roadway and the upper level railway.  Also the guts of it, the mechanical and electric components will also be replaced.  This is a very historic bridge and those elements - the railings, the bridge houses, the major structural components - will be replaced but will retain the 1920's look of this bridge.

We have crews working around the clock, 24 hours on 12 hour shifts on an accelerated construction schedule that's designed to keep CTA service interruptions at a minimum and in fact last night, if you were out here and saw, they actually removed the leaf that they're working on and they're now prepping it to put that new leaf in that's out there on a barge.

This will actually be the first time that the city has replaced large sections of an active bridge that also carries CTA trains.

When this project is completed at the end of November, we will have extended the life of this critical piece of infrastructure by another 75 years or more.

�This is an incredible feat,� said Klein.  �It's really like performing open heart surgery on a living patient.�  Although trains were still running up to 10:00 p.m. last Friday, the construction crews, as Klein indicated, got the old leaf removed by the end of Saturday.

Forrest Claypool, Gabe Klein, Rahm Emanuel

The project is estimated to cost over $41,000,000.  Between Emanuel, Klein and CTA head Forrest Claypool, also at Sunday's media event, it was mentioned at least three times that the way this is being managed is saving $500,000.  �In the past,� explained Rahm,  �CDOT would have done the bridge; years later the CTA would have done the tracks.�  While Klein and Claypool were both too polite to correct their boss, I get the impression that the mayor may have been winging it here.  If the CTA didn't immediately put their tracks on the rebuilt bridge, how would their trains get across all those �years later�?

Tower 18, Lake and Wells

Claypool offered up the actual source of savings.  �The CTA will be using this opportunity,� he explained, �. . . to do track work here, along the Hubbard curve, as well at Tower 18, at Lake and Wells, where 5 out of every 8 trains in the system travel through each day, so it's a critical juncture for us and is an opportunity to modernize and repair it during this bridge reconstruction .  That will also save the taxpayers half a million dollars by doing the projects at the same time.�

It's also makes for a kind of big mess, especially this weekend and next, when not only the Brown and Purple lines that use Wells Street, but all the other lines - Green, Pink and Orange - using the Loop L will encounter significant obstructions.  Shuttle buses will be in place for Monday's commute.  There are all kinds of interesting variations.  Some Brown Line trains will run in the Red Line subway.  Some trains will terminate at Merchandise Mart.  Some trains will terminate at Chicago. Some trains go nowhere at all - they're just messing with you.  Check out the official CTA bridge-down website and place your bets.

�I'm not minimizing it,� said the Mayor.  �It is going to be an inconvenience .  You can't spin your way out of that.�  He also said it wouldn't stop him from his usual habit from using the CTA to commute to work a couple times a week.

�This is just one project,� said Claypool,  �amid four billion dollars of initiatives that the CTA under Mayor Emanuel's administration in the next few years to reconstruct the system and modernize it.  That includes everything from a new rail fleet to a new bus fleet to eliminating 70% of the slow zones on the system by 2015, which will provide relief to 85% of our riders.�

�We are in the process of now completing 20 million dollars of improvements on the Green Line, repairs and removal of slow zones in anticipation and preparation for the complete rebuilding of the Red Line south beginning in May.  We will be literally building a brand new railroad from 95th street to 22nd street, cutting 20 minutes off the daily commute of south side customers and enhancing service throughout the Red Line and throughout the system.�

Now if we can just get him to do something about all those forward-facing seats.  I'd feel a lot better about my time on the �L� if I wasn't forced to spend it staring into someone's crotch.

Other current CTA projects include rebuilding Clark and Division, starting construction on a new Green Line stop near McCormick Place designed by Carol Ross Barney, and finishing the plans to replace the current Randolph and Wabash, and Madison and Wabash stops with a single �superstation� at Washington. 

For right now, back at Wells Street, it may be something of a mess, but it sure makes for great urban theater.

UPDATE: Moonday, March 4th, P.M.  The new south leaf has been put into position . . .

 

Finishing the Chicago Riverwalk, Part Two: Opera on the River? (or Maybe just some Jazz).

This picks up from my first Finishing the Riverwalk post last week to continue westward with City of Chicago's new plan to complete the Chicago Riverwalk along the north bank of the river from State Street to Lake Street, which has remained unfinished since the reconstruction of West Wacker Drive over a decade ago.

CDOT Chicago Riverwalk proposal - The Cove (click images for larger view)

In my previous post, I started with the Marina, from State to Dearborn.  Today, we're moving on the The Cove, in the next block, Dearborn to Clark. �This is much more of a family oriented location,� says Chicago Department of Transportation Manager Michelle Woods, who presented the proposals at a public meeting at the Chicago Architecture Foundation last week that also included architect Carol Ross Barney and Sasaki Associates Principal Gina Ford.  �Instead of formal steps going down, this gently slopes down and is like a sand dune kind of experience.  We have native grasses and things that could withstand being flooded and submerged in our 100-year rainstorm.    This could be another great place for people to come and hang out out of the traffic of the main branch of the river.  Maybe we have a kayak concession renting out vessels.  We might have something where people could come and just rent out chairs and sit and have lunch, watching all the activity taking place as the river is floating past them.�

CDOT Chicago Riverwalk proposal - River Theater, Clark to Lasalle

The next block, the River Theater, from Clark to LaSalle, is the one specifically designed to bring together a large number of people either informally or as the audience for programs. �I like to call it Michelle's Woods, � joked Michelle Woods, �because I'm so humble.  So this is kind of Chicago's Spanish Steps, if you will.  We'll have this great big grand stairwell that comes down to the river, and then gently cutting throughout the stairways is a nice ramp so if you have a wheelchair, or if you have a child in the stroller, you'll be able to come from up to down.  This is a location where we would potentially have the water taxi service or maybe a dinner boat cruise..�

�For those of you who are into landscape architecture, I really like to point out the great job the team did on the tree pits and the tree gates.  This is the first of its kind tree gate - instead of having a typical boxed pit, we're doing trenches, mostly, so it's going to help with the sustainability of the trees over the long term.  You can also see they've cut into the steps for the tree grates to help with the life of the tree.�

It's here where you could imagine audiences gathering for formal programming, and then you have to figure out where you put the performers.  One thing that's missing from the formal CDOT presentations is context.  There are a lot of renderings of what the new installations would look like, and few showing what they're actually looking at on the other side of the river.  In the case of the River Theater, the direct backdrop is the the 1914 Reid Murdoch Building, with its distinctive clock tower.

At the Reid Murdoch, the upper level promenade is catwalk-shallow, but there's also a lower level plaza, which has had tables for the Fulton on the River restaurant, which could serve as a stage for the Theater on the other side of the River.  Or maybe you put performers on a floating barge stage. 

Or maybe one, last Neiman Marcus sized idea . . .

set for Giordano's Andrea Ch�nier � Bregenz Festival -photograph: Kristi Sauer

This is a photograph of a production of Giordano's opera Andrea Ch�nier at the Bregenz Festival, in Austria.   Every two years a stage like this is built above a concrete core in Lake Constance.  The spectacular water bourne sets, of which you can see more here, must be of lightweight construction and capable of being disposed of in an economically sensitive way.  Me, I'm holding out for a Chicago riverfront production of Turandot, with Lisa Madigan as Turandot, Mike Madigan as Altoum, Richard Daley as Timur, Rahm as Calaf, Toni Preckwinkle as Liu, and Ed Burke, Jean-Claude Brizzard and Pat O'Connor as Ping, Pang and Pong.  Costumes by Nick Cave; sets by Jeanne Gang, direction by David Cromer, the Grant Park Symphony and Christopher Bell's Chorus conducted by Carlos Kalmar . . .

Oh, sorry, got a bit carried away for a moment there.  I can just picture the very idea of a floating barge large enough to support an opera sending the Army Corp of Engineers into convulsions, but entertainment on a saner scale isn't only possible; it's already being done.

Last year, or maybe the year before, I was coming home, walking along the north branch by the ABA Tower, when I heard jazz music wafting up in the night air.  Lagniappe, one of the seasonal cafes set up in what under the new proposals is  to be The Cove on the south bank, had blues and jazz nights throughout the summer, and as I listened, I shared the music with an impromptu flotilla of boats hovering on the river around the cafe.  With the music playing out in a soft acoustic like a velvet glove, the traffic moving along Wacker, and the lights of the skyscrapers reflected in the windshields of the boats as they bobbed on the water, it was if the entire river had become a hypnotic music video.

I think the River Theater is a great concept.  Mayor Emanuel apparently thinks so, too, at least according to CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein, who was at the back of the room for Michelle Woods' presentation last week. �The Mayor and I  both love this one the best,� said Klein, �although I shouldn't speak for him.  For me, I like that it breaks down the barrier between Wacker Drive and the River . . . Right now, there's such a barrier and the contiguous bit is so crucial to the project.  I think the Mayor also likes this because he actually seems the potential for some small performance-type space as well.�  Ballet, we could do ballet, too.  (Actually, the two level promenade and the windows and tower of the Reid Murdoch could make a great setting for choreographers to move their dancers through their patterns.)

The River Theater is the last block in the new Riverwalk proposals where CDOT says the design work is 90% done.  For the balance of the blocks, going to Lake Street, the design work is said to be only 10%, but there are already some ideas, and we'll cover them in our last post of River Walk proposals next week.

Learning to Love Bike Lanes (Some Street Reading Required)

photo: CDOT

The bicycle:  the future - or the yuppies revenge?

On Friday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Department of Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein dedicated the city's most ambitious commitment yet to the ideal of taking biking beyond the recreational to make it an integral part of Chicago's transportation system.  On the west side of Dearborn, from Polk Street all the way north to Kinzie, there is now the city's first two-way, protected bike route, complete with dedicated bicycle signals.  At the Printers Row Park event, Klein also officially released the Chicago Streets for Cycling Plan 2020, an ambitious document that sets a goal of a 645-mile network that puts protected bikeways within half a mile of every Chicago resident.

click images for larger view

It was a Back to the Future moment, as Chicago rose the crest of the first major bike boom back in the 1890's, when the introduction of the affordable safety bicycle set sales soaring. 

courtesy: The Chuckman Collection

It also created a new industry, with Chicago at its center.  No fewer than 38 bicycle manufacturers made Chicago their home.  In one estimate, two out of every three bicycles built in America came from plants located within 150 miles of Chicago's city center.  Manufacturers from throughout the world exhibited "bicycles, tricycles and appurtenances" at the 1893 World's Columbia Exposition, where you could also see the "Hotchkiss Bicycle Railroad", which was essentially bicycles mounted on an extended wooden fence.

photograph: J Randal, Wikipedia

Of course, it was not the bicycle railroad, but the highway that would come to dominate American transportation, as the rise of the automobile soon relegated the bike to a children's toy.  The great bike boom of 1890's created a surplus of product that sent Chicago's bike manufacturers reeling toward bankruptcy.  Today, 86% of the bicycles sold in America are manufactured in China.

Somewhere around the great 1973 oil embargo, however, adults began to rediscover the bike, reclaiming the pathways from their kids.  According to one survey, over a quarter of all Americans sixteen or older ride a bike sometime in the year  Over 130,000,000 bikes are manufactured annually worldwide,  most of them for adult riders.

The number of people using bikes to commute to work remains small.  Portland, Oregon, at just under 6%, remains the champ.  New York City is at .6%, and most cities, including Chicago, hover somewhere around the 1% mark.

Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein

The Emanuel administration wants to change that, and is intent on taking biking beyond the boutique.  �People are going to ride their bikes to work,� said Emanuel on Friday, �It's going to happen.  Now we've got to do it in a way that insures protection for both the bicyclist and the driver.�
Emanuel posits a clear connection between bikeability and economic growth: 

Two facts in the last year:  coincidence?  I think not.  One, the City of Chicago moved from tenth to fifth of most bike-friendly cities in the country in one year.  No other city has ever moved that far that fast. In the same year, the city of Chicago moved from fifteen to tenth worldwide in startup economy.  No other city has moved that far, that fast. And you cannot be for a start-up, high-tech economy and not be pro-bike.  And you can't be pro-bike without having a vision of having a start-up economy."

In addition to Dearborn Street, 2012 saw the completion of a spoke route on Wabash, and crosstown routes on 18th, Jackson and Kinzie.  The goal is to have 100 miles of protected bike lanes by 2015, and over 500 new miles by 2012.   Through 2015, $32 million of the funding comes through the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program, with a $8 million local match.  The city is still trying to figure out a dedicated funding source for ongoing maintenance.

Despite the economic potential Emanuel sees in biking, the intrusion of an increasing number of bicycle riders into our car-clogged streets has often taken on the pitched-battle profile that recalls the animosity between farmers and ranchers in the Old West.

The Trib's John Kass, as part of his ongoing battle against the 21st Century, rails against "elitist politically coddled bicyclists" by indulging his usual habit of seeing everything in Chicago he doesn't like as a Rahm Emanuel plot,  raising spectres of traffic tickets and tolls for bikers.  But even a dedicated bicyclist like Crain's Chicago Business's Greg Hinz, citing over 1,400 Chicago bicycle injuries  each year, with 39 fatalities since 2005, expresses his doubts over the city's bike plan: "I just don't know if it it's possible."  Part of the plan is to make streets safer by deliberately slowing down motor traffic.  How will drivers take to that?

There's no doubt that bike lanes confound our unthinking expectations in navigating streets, almost as if we suddenly decided to adopt the British method of driving on the left.   What we expect is sidewalk/parking/southbound lanes/northbound lanes/parking/sidewalk.  On Dearborn Street, what we see is the southbound parking actually thrust into the street, replacing a traffic lane.    A two-way, "barrier protected" bike lane, north and southbound, takes up what was previously the parking lane.  

The "barrier" consists of spike-like bollards placed at wide intervals along the inward perimeter of the route. The markings painted on the sidewalk become an essential iconography in defining the bike lanes and their relationship to the rest of the street.  Green-painted "Two-stage turn boxes" provide bikers a waiting space for making two-stage turns.

There are mixing zones, crossing markings galore, and even new traffic signals designed for bicycle crossings . . .

It's like having to learn a new language, relearning how we "read" the city as we move through it.  No doubt about it, it's a bold initiative, and a real gamble.  It not only serves a constituency, but aims to shape behaviour.  If nothing else, the initial disorientation should give us a chance to not just move past the city on our way to somewhere else, but see it afresh as we're reclaiming our bearings.