Chicago’s Pedestrian Plan: a West Town pedestrian’s thoughts

The city of Chicago’s glossy Pedestrian Plan is pretty impressive. The plan’s substantive recommendations are broken down into safety, connectivity, livability and health sections. Given that pedestrian safety and accommodations are by no means evenly protected nationwide, it’s a timely subject. Closer to home,  my own Wicker Park/West Town pedestrian experience provides a lot of food for thought.

One very basic step that I don’t think is present is to simply repaint all the lane and crosswalk markings on the street. Many lane markings are already close to nonexistent, and given Chicago’s northerly location, there are large chunks of the year when traveling both before and after work are completely in the dark, only making it harder to discern where there are any stops. The stretch of Division Street between the Kennedy and Ashland is particularly badly painted, in my experience, and it doesn’t help that it’s next to a dank underpass.

Similarly, stop signs should be clearly visible for drivers, and care should be taken that foliage in the warm months doesn’t block the signs. I speak from personal experience: again on Division St, I’ve missed a stop sign (once), thankfully not hitting any pedestrians.

With regards to the yellow marked pedestrian signs, I like these insofar as they are remarkably visible from a vehicle. The one closest is to me is on the Paulina St sidewalk, between Bangers & Lace and Starbucks — anecdotally, I’ve found that drivers are more likely to stop for me in the crosswalk once that sign went in. My one concern is that these kind of signs can create the impression that these crosswalks are somehow “special,” when in reality all crosswalks should be treated this way.

I’m particularly interested in the city’s footnote on page 69, in its “Connectivity” section, that the city is considering creating parking maximums for locations within an eighth of a mile of a transit station. I’m particularly interested in this (having written about buildings close to transit stations before) as I’ve found that in Chicago, there are numerous rail stations that have pretty pedestrian-unfriendly development around them — not even counting the expressway

The three Blue Line stops of Western, Damen and Division provide a particularly apt continuum for comparison. Damen’s the “best” here, with relatively pedestrian-friendly development radiating out in most directions from the station. Western, just half a mile northwest, I’ve always found to be particularly unfriendly: from the elevated station, there are two surface parking lots on either side of Western and a McDonald’s with more surface parking, not to mention Western Ave itself, which is already a pretty wide street.

I always think of the optimal model in these cases being Arlington’s corridor model in the greater DC area, with density skewing downwards from each Metro station — at least in theory — all the way down to street. Of course, this is more easily said than done, particularly when large portions of Chicago’s rail system are decades older than the DC Metro — I don’t think tearing down buildings and mandating skyscraper construction around the L is going to work. But mandating that future development take transit proximity into account with regards to parking is a good start.

Finally, a suggestion that’s a little bit out of left field, but I didn’t find any mention of sidewalk trees in the plan. This is obviously costly. But research has definitely found that trees on a sidewalk, even when they are leafless in the winter, contribute to the pedestrian experience. My least favorite long stretch of sidewalk in my neighborhood is on Augusta Ave, precisely because it’s already a narrow, often poorly-maintained sidewalk that lacks any sort of street foliage cover.

The Chicago pedestrian plan is a good start, although as always these plans are more easily achievable on paper than they are in real life. But it sounds