New Chicago Plan: Pedestrians Come First

[marmar]

from the Atlantic:


Tucked inside the new Complete Streets Design Guidelines that the city of Chicago is about to debut, pasted onto page 10, is a reproduction of a Chicago Tribune news blurb from May 6, of 1913 with this irresistible headline: “SPEEDER WANTS ALL STREET: Motorist Complains to Judge Because Pedestrian Gets in Way.”

Pedestrian advocates exactly a century later will be happy to know that our 19-year-old anti-hero, Harold Bracken (son of a saloonkeeper!), was fined by the court $200 for knocking over a pedestrian on Michigan Avenue with his speeding car. An equally awesome detail: Our injured pedestrian got up, jumped into a passing car, caught up with Bracken and had him arrested. In doling out the fine, a municipal judge declared, "The Streets of Chicago belong to the city, not to automobilists."

This is, in short, the guiding philosophy for how Chicago’s Department of Transportation is now planning to look at all of its projects. A local judge may have expressed the sentiment a century ago. But in reality, in the Second City – as in just about every American metro – autos have long dominated city streets and how we think about who uses them, why they exist and what defines them as successful. This summer, though, Chicago is planning to roll out a small-sounding but seismic policy shift: From now on, in the design guidelines for every effort from major streetscape projects to minor roadside electrical work, transportation work must defer to a new “default modal hierarchy.” The pedestrian comes first.

"My feeling is that we have to swing the pendulum in the other direction," says Gabe Klein, commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Transportation. "The fact is that the transit user is also a pedestrian, a cyclist is also a pedestrian, an auto user is also a pedestrian. You may not chose the other modes every day, but every day you’re a pedestrian." ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/04/chicago-commits-put-pedestrians-first-transportation-planning/5256/