| October
2005 |
|
Message from New Orleans: 'The Unseen Faces of Bicycling' Bicycling Advocacy Around the Globe: London Who Knows Where the Traffic Goes? Oak Park Shop By Bike a Winner New Faces in Bicycling Advocacy |
Who Knows Where the Traffic Goes? In July, we reported that Chicagoland traffic congestion has escalated, despite construction and expansion of highways. This month, we examine how removing a highway affects traffic congestion. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake shook San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge like grandma shaking grandpa's whiskers out of the bathroom rug, spilled beer on shoes in Candlestick Park and finally allowed the city to knock down the Embarcadero Freeway, a stunted, vilified double-decker expressway strangling San Francisco's historic waterfront. The city — heir to the West Coast “freeway revolts” of the 1960s — hated the Embarcadero, yet found itself cowed by traffic engineers’ and merchants’ warnings that its removal would result in 100,000 cars overwhelming local streets each day. But, the 1989 earthquake damaged the Embarcadero so badly that repair was out of the question; and rebuilding it would be too costly. In 1991, city demolished the Embarcadero, and held its foggy breath. Subsequent waterfront development has fueled a decade-and-a-half economic boom in San Francisco. Views of the bay from home and office sent buyer and developer interests soaring. The Giants’ new baseball stadium — built in 2000 — gleams in the sun on ground once darkened by six lanes of overhead traffic. Traffic obviously increased from a merchant, tourism or real estate perspective. But car traffic plummeted: 20 percent of the car trips once carried by the freeway simply vanished from the city altogether — roughly 20,000 trips. To Northeastern Illinois, where towns beg for an I-355 interchange, this idea — that a reduction in car-carrying capacity can alleviate traffic congestion while encouraging economic growth — sounds like what you'd expect from a town full of hippies. But, it's hard to characterize Great Britain as a bunch of hippies; and that's where the most compelling research of this phenomenon has taken place. In a study published in 1998, commissioned by London Transport (London's department of transportation) and the British government, professor Phil Goodwin of University College London researched 60 major road closings in the world's largest cities to see if another radical idea — that building more roads actually causes more traffic — had a corollary. Goodwin found that once a road was removed or closed, on average, long-term traffic levels on alternate routes were 20 percent lower than they should have been. In some cases, more than half of the traffic that once flowed on a since-closed route was missing. The most dramatic reductions happened in cities that offered the most transportation choices. But, Goodwin also found that individuals exercise far more choice in how they transport themselves than traffic models assume. This combination — system choice plus traveler flexibility — largely accounted for the dramatic reduction in car use without significantly hampering individual mobility. Goodwin's work has greatly influenced England's transportation policy and, combined with San Francisco's Embarcadero project, is influencing some American cities to remove freeways or to cancel road projects. You might think the closest example to home is Milwaukee's Park East Freeway, which was voted into oblivion by the city in 1999. But, the closest example is in Chicago. Chicago's bike lane program has been reducing the car-carrying capacity of Chicago streets for seven years. Where highway removal might be characterized as liposuction, Chicago's approach is a gentle “road diet,” as it claims a portion of the pavement for the use of bicycles, while bringing neighborhoods the benefits of reduced automobile traffic, more attractive streets and increased foot traffic for merchants. Barring a grand revocation from Mother Nature, like the Loma Prieta quake, Chicagoland will build at least one new expressway and expand its freeway capacity by 30 percent over the next five years. But, we can still look for the Embarcaderos in our neighborhoods — those streets and areas whose potential for liveliness and economic success are suffocated by accommodating cars instead of people. Loma Prieta shook the foundation of America's long-held — and vigorously defended — assumptions about traffic and road-building. Let's bring these listing structures down and re-build our ideas about mobility using lessons learned. Steve Buchtel is the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation Southland
coordinator
|
