Saturday, November 24, 2007

Accident Waiting To Happen

We are continually amazed at how much neglect anything CTA related receives once the tracks enter the 46th Ward. Case in point, this bridge, mainly used by purple line trains, at Leland and Broadway. All we have to say is that we hope we are not anywhere near this crumbling eyesore when it decides to drop off a chunk of concrete on an unsuspecting bystander or car below, or worse yet, collapse. And while we are on it, we have called 311 several times to report the fact that there is STILL no lighting under the tracks by Ace-Hardware at night. We encourage our readers to flood 311 and the Alderman's office with requests for the lighting to be fixed under these tracks. We are giving criminals an easy way to conduct business anywhere near this spot.

5 comments:

  1. If you visit Chicagocrime.org, you will notice that the crime is really high in this area with poor lighting. Several years ago at our Beat 2311 CAPS meeting, we did try to get Ald. Shiller to get more lights there, but we weren't successful. We were told we just needed lights with higher wattage and then nothing was done.

    However, it's worth trying again. This board might help to embarrass her to do the right thing.

    I might suggest adding a photo of the area at night to further illustrate the point publicly. I'll be happy to send you a photo later today.

    Speaking of poor lighting, Beat 2312 has been working to get lighting back on at our play lot on the 4600 block of N. Kenmore. Three years and still no luck.

    If you want to see some good example of good lighting, just venture a block into the 44th Ward and you'll see some great sidewalk lighting along with the street lighting. It's great for promoting foot traffic. We do have that nice type of lighting in the 46th Ward, but it's on a residential street in Buena Park with many beautiful mansions. Seems they were able to get it, but we still can't get any in our retail areas. Go figure.

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  2. Thanks James. Send us the pic and we will be glad to post it.

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  3. Actually, the lighting James talks about was just added to the clarendon Park neighborhood. It's nice and much brighter.

    So if two people are murdered on your block a couple of days apart you too can have this type of lighting.

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  4. If you look at most other neighborhoods, you see this type of sidewalk lighting in retail areas first as a way of encouraging shopping, and later on it's added to heavily traveled residential areas.

    Today, on what is suppose to be a busy shopping day, I saw the 4500 - 4600 block of N. Broadway pretty much closed down at just after 6PM. The only 4 stores on the west side I saw opened were Aldi's, Smoke Dreams, and two beauty parlors.

    Aldi's looked rather empty and the parking lot in the back of the store was pitch dark.

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  5. The police could be doing more here too. They have the ability to write up CAPS city service requests (as to all citizens) but they also have the ability to add priority to that service request if it involves a potential crime or safety issue. I can never get our officers near the Lakefront to do this. What have they done for you lately?

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