Monday, July 5, 2010

Lawrence Avenue To Get Character Change

It's west of Uptown, but it'll affect us.  Lawrence Avenue is changing from Western to Ashland:  becoming more pedestrian friendly with islands and wider sidewalks; making it more driver-friendly by adding a continuous turning lane down the center of the street; and bike paths.  Ald. Schulter (47th) claims it'll connect Lincoln Square and Andersonville to the rest of the community.

$12 million in TIF funds will most likely be used.  Read the entire article here.
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9 comments:

  1. EYE IN THE SKYJuly 5, 2010 at 1:10 PM

    Boy do I love election season.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Organic peregrine terra cotta bricolage cruelty- free locally outsourced maple nut crunchJuly 5, 2010 at 2:56 PM

    Now if we could only do something about people staggering up and down the street, stoned out of their mind

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  3. chipdouglasJuly 5, 2010 at 5:01 PM

    My favorite line....
    "Ald. Schulter (47th) claims it'll connect Lincoln Square and Andersonville to the rest of the community."

    Did anyone check with Helen to see if she wants Andersonville connected to the rest of the communities? What if some of those Uptown thugs wander over her way?

    My favorite part of Lincoln Square is that it's NOT connected to the crap I have to put up with in Uptown. It's like a mini vacation when we walk over there. I can sit outside and eat with my family and not have to worry about getting shot, someone asking me for money, or hearing the word "motherfucker" from every other person who walks by. Ahhhhh.

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  4. UnknownJuly 5, 2010 at 6:11 PM

    This is an awesome plan for Lawrence.

    Its such a great street overall
    but suffers from bad streetscaping.

    Its such a dense street and really its a street on the rise.
    As it has many el stops, the redline is on it and the brown line is just south of it and has the brown line terminus.

    This will help a whole lot.

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  5. J-DogJuly 5, 2010 at 7:46 PM

    Will it help Lawrence Avenue's use as the recommended truck route to the proposed Maryville development too? The bottle neck and traffic jam on Lawrence generally occurs on the stretch from Clark Street into Uptown.

    According to the Traffic Study commissioned by the developer for the Montrose Clarendon-Maryville redevelopment plan Lawrence Avenue is the proposed truck route for Tractor Trailers and other delivery trucks going to development and grocery store.

    Starting at the Kennedy Expressway Trucks would travel east on Lawrence Avenue to Marine Drive, turn right onto Marine Drive, take Marine Drive to Montrose, turn right onto Montrose to past Clarendon and then turn right into the alley to access the loading dock.

    Trucks leaving the loading dock and alley would exit East onto Agatite Avenue in the center of the block and turn left onto Clarendon from Agatite and travel North on Clarendon along Clarendon Park to Lawrence Avenue heading West.

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  6. Local LassieJuly 6, 2010 at 9:10 AM

    I live near Ashland & Lawrence and I hope that they don't start this project till the stretch of Lawrence between Ashland & Broadway is completely tended to (also the Clark/Leland project), or I'll NEVER get to work on time! :-(

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  7. stopwhiningJuly 7, 2010 at 3:26 AM

    Turning Lawrence Ave. into a 2 lane street from it's existing 4 lanes (Western-Ashland) will only worsen traffic on that stretch -- it'll make the jams seen b/w Sheridan and Clard extend all the way to Western. Did anyone even consider the traffic impact?!?

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  8. ConfusedJuly 7, 2010 at 8:24 AM

    Reducing lanes from 4 to 2 makes the street less efficient at moving automobile traffic, which, correct me if I'm wrong, is the primary function of the street.

    Almost all major intersections have left turn lanes. Being held up by cars turning left has never been an issue, so I'm not sure what problem is being fixed by having a dedicated center turn lane.

    Lights abound for pedestrian crossings.

    Bikes are fairly infrequent compared to cars, and there is already a painted bike lane similar to most every other street in Chicago.

    When you are west of Western Ave where there are two lanes, traffic jams abound throughout the day. It's the exception when I get through that stretch quickly.

    So how is this better? Sounds like a boondoggle.

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  9. ConfusedJuly 7, 2010 at 8:26 AM

    And, let the record show I take this route 5 days a week.

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