The Stevenson Corridor

Of the tens of thousands of motorists who every day drive along the section of Interstate 55 that bisects the Chicago metropolitan area, (known to locals as the Stevenson Expressway), my guess is few of them consider that particular patch of concrete and its surrounding area as anything special, if they consider them at all. While it does provide a spectacular view of the city as you approach it from the southwest, to the uninitiated, the Stevenson, like most highways of its type, is nothing less than a brutal assault on the senses: a tedious landscape, flanked by uninspired shrubbery and architecture, littered with endless billboards, the typical detritus of our automobile/consumer culture. Some of the notable institutions the expressway passes are the largest single site jail in the Unites States, Cook County Jail, and the world's largest sewage treatment facility, the Stickney Water Reclamation Plant. That plant as well as the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal and the numerous industries served by it, produce the foul smell to which travelers on the highway have become accustomed. The rumble of freight trains, the blasts of their locomotives' horns, and the endless drone of rubber on the concrete pavement make for a sound landscape every bit as unwelcoming as the visual one. If that weren't enough, adding to the anxiety is the recent phenomenon of random shootings and other crimes taking place on the highway, not to mention the inherent danger of high speed motor travel, that contribute not a small about to the overall grimness of the place.

Heading eastbound on the Adlai E. Stevenson Expressway

No, you will not find the Stevenson, (named after former Illinois governor and UN ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson), and its environs in the guidebooks, or on very many bucket lists of things to do in Chicago. As it has for centuries, the corridor exists as a place you pass through to get someplace else. 

In spite of, or perhaps because of that, the Stevenson Corridor occupies the most historically significant geography in the entire Chicago metropolitan area. In fact, the very reason Chicago exists as all is because of the transportation corridor occupied now by the highway, that existed long before settlers of European descent set foot in the region.

If you're up on your Chicago history, or read my post on the Erie Canal, you understand why. In short, the land underneath the current superhighway, roughly between Ashland and Harlem Avenues, once served as the portage trail between the South Branch of the Chicago River, which flowed into Lake Michigan, and the Des Plaines River, whose waters eventually make their way into the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. That seven mile Chicago Portage was for Native Americans and the Europeans who followed them, the shortest, most accommodating barrier between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River systems. Interest in the future development of Chicago goes all the way back 1673 when the explorers Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette, the first Europeans to set foot in the area, came up with the idea of building a canal that would connect the two waterways.

That canal eventually was built. Completed in 1848, the Illinois & Michigan Canal was much longer than Jolliet's conception, bypassing the Des Plaines, because that river was un-navigable for anything larger than a canoe for much of the year. Instead the I&M Canal made a 96 mile beeline straight to the Illinois River. Only traces of the I&M Canal exist today, it was made obsolescent not long after its completion by the advent of the railroad, and completely supplanted by the much larger Ship and Sanitary Canal. That notwithstanding. the I&M Canal was vital to the development of Chicago, as speculative investment capital in anticipation of its construction is directly responsible for turning a river trading post into a major city. Many of the same investors who built the canal turned their attention to the railroads and it followed quite naturally that Chicago would become the transportation hub of the Midwest. 

As it has for centuries, the Stevenson Corridor continues to be a major transportation conduit for Chicago, the Midwest, and the entire nation. The expressway is the final leg of I-55 which begins in East St. Louis, Illinois. It supplanted the first leg of legendary of Route 66 which as the song reminds us, wound

...from Chicago to LA, more than two thousand miles along the way.

In turn, Route 66 took much of the traffic off one of Chicago's most storied thoroughfares, Archer Avenue, originally an Indian trail, which followed the Chicago Portage and later the canal, all the way to Lockport, Illinois. 

As storied as Route 66, is the railroad line that follows the route of the canals and the Stevenson Expressway into Chicago. The tracks, now the property of the mega-corporation known as BNSF, were once the domain of the Santa Fe Railroad, upon which their legendary passenger train the Super Chief entered the city after its 36 hour 49 minute run from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. The Super Chief is gone but its tracks are still heavily used to carry freight trains into, out of, and through the city as well as Amtrak passenger trains headed to points west. Chicago's elevated rapid transit also makes a brief appearance alongside the Stevenson on old railroad right of way, in the form of the system's "Orange Line" connecting Midway Airport a mile south of the expressway, to Chicago's Loop.  

Finally, the Ship and Sanitary Canal which opened in 1900, continues, as its name implies, to be a navigation canal as well as a transportation system for a much less pleasant substance, Chicago's sewage. That natural byproduct of human development once ended up in the city's water source, Lake Michigan, via the Chicago River. The construction of the sanitary canal provided the means by which the course of the Chicago River could be reversed from flowing into the lake, to the Mississippi River system via the river and canal, in the direction of the less than appreciative residents of downstream towns such as Joliet, Illinois.  

While it may not be in the guidebooks,  the Stevenson corridor remains as vital to Chicago's present, as much as it was to the city's past.

This week, my daughter and I visited three sites, all footsteps from the Stevenson Expressway, that played a tremendous role in the history of the Chicago Portage. As such they are three of the most important historical sites in the city.

The Gap in the Divide

The City of Chicago sits on a continental divide, the St. Lawrence Divide to be exact, straddling two major watersheds, the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi River. A divide is simply the high point in a land mass between two bodies of water. Rain water falling on one side of the divide will eventually drain into the body of water on that side of the divide, while water falling on the opposite side will drain into the body of water on that side. When we imagine continental divides, we tend to think of great mountain ranges crossing a continent. As we have no mountains in Chicago, not even puny hills, the divide needn't be very high at all. The Des Plains River historically has flooded its banks to such an extent that in the most severe cases, flood waters from that river were high enough to breach the divide at its saddle, or lowest point, flowing over the divide and into the Chicago River, thereby temporarily reversing the flow of the Des Plaines. The historic saddle point of the St. Lawrence Divide where it intersects the water course in the city of Chicago, is located near 3100 W. 31st Street, in the neighborhood of Little Village. West of the divide there was once a large mass of flat land (even by Chicago standards), part of the Des Plaines River's flood plain, called Mud Lake. As you can imagine, Mud Lake was a poorly drained swamp that for part of the year was flooded enough to support canoes and other small boats. For the rest of the year Mud Lake was a flat dusty plain which made for relatively easy traversal. It was at this saddle point in the divide where Native Americans cut a notch into the land, breaching the divide, thereby creating during the rainy season, a continuous water path between the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers.  

The site of the historic saddle point of the St. Lawrence Divide in Chicago is now occupied by one of Chicago's newest parks, La Villita Park at 31st Street and Albany. That 22 acre park, dedicated in December, 2014, has an interesting history of its own.

The south entrance to La Villita Park at 31st and Albany in Chicago's Little Village Neighborhood

Where La Villita Park now resides was once the site of a large industrial complex whose occupants included a company that sold and  manufactured asphalt roofing products. In 1989, complaints from neighbors were received by the Illinois EPA about coal tar, a byproduct of the plant, that was present on their property. In 1993, the federal EPA got involved to force the owners of the property to clean up the site of the former plant. Community activists got into the act and working with the city, they turned what was once a toxic wasteland into a public park. You can read details of the struggle here, on the EPA website.

Part of the massive cleanup of the site involved covering the polluted ground with several feet of topsoil. The designers of the park put the new soil to good use, using it to carve berms that place the park several feet above the rest of its surroundings, creating a nice vista of the Little Village neighborhood to the west, and the aforementioned Cook Country Jail to the north and east.. I can't say for sure but perhaps in raising the park above its surroundings, its designers were alluding to the natural divide that the park sits upon. 

As far as I could tell, there is no reference to the tremendous historical significance of the site at the park. Perhaps some day...

The Trail Head

Lack of recognition is not the case with The Chicago Portage National Historic Site, at the western end of Mud Lake and the historic portage trail. Located in the suburb of Lyons, Illinois, the site, dedicated in 1952 is designated as an "affiliated area", owned an operated by the  the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, and listed by the National Park Service. By removing invasive species of plants such as European Buckthorn from the preserve, great pains have been taken to make the site look, feel and smell just as it did when eastbound travelers, first the Native Americans, then the likes of Father Marquette, Louis Jolliet and later, Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle, disembarked from their canoes and made the relatively painless over-land journey to the South Branch of the Chicago River, seven miles to the east.  

From this website put together by the Friends of the Chicago Portage:

...nearly every site of Chicago’s origin’s has been destroyed. The remains of Fort Dearborn are buried under three layers of Wacker Drive, you can't visit DuSable & Kinzie's cabin, the Portage Trail is completely paved over and old “Mud Lake” is now the site of the world’s largest sewage treatment plant. The Chicago Portage National Historic Site is the only major remnant of the discovery and settlement of Chicago.

The last vestige of Portage Creek which once flowed into the Des Plains River.
Today its flow has been reversed to divert flood waters away from the river.

Water flowing through a swale after a heavy rain, into Portage Creek

The flooded Des Plaines River after a heavy July storm

The southern edge of the Chicago Portage National Historical Site and adjacent industrial land
which one day will hopefully be the site of a visitor center.

BNSF engines rumbling along the tracks marking the northern edge of the preserve,
reminding us of the tremendous significance of the area as a transportation corridor.

Composite photograph of a Bur Oak tree which as the didactic panel on the lower left explains,
more than likely was passed by explorers Jolliet and Marquette as they were led
through the Chicago Portage.

This statue of a Native American guide assisting explorers Father Marquette and Louis Jolliet
as the make their way along the Chicago Portage, greets visitors as they arrive at the Historical Site

Birth of the Canal

The last stop on our tour of historic sites along the Stevenson Corridor was another new Chicago Park District Park, Canal Origins Park. The park is located on Ashland Avenue, at the fork in the South Branch of the Chicago River where the notorious Bubbly Creek (the dumping ground for a century's worth of effluence from the old Stockyards), branches off from the river. It was on this spot on the Fourth of July, 1836, where city fathers and investors stuck their shovels into the ground marking the start of construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. 

The significance of the canal to the city cannot be underestimated. The timing of its conception and construction occurred during a very small window of opportunity that made the difference between success and failure for both the canal and the city. It was the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 connecting Chicago to New York, and with it, capital investments from that city, that made construction of the I&M, and the tremendous growth of the city happen. Had there been a delay of a decade or so in breaking ground for the canal, railroads by then would have gained a foothold in the Midwest, making the canal unnecessary, Had that been the case, Chicago, with its inhospitable swampy natural terrain, could very well have been bypassed in favor of a city built upon more solid ground.  

The workers who labored to build the I&M Canal were largely Irish immigrants, many of whom settled in the neighborhood of Bridgeport where the canal originated. The building of the canal meant that Chicago already had a significant Irish population at the time of the Great Potato Famine that devastated Ireland from 1845 until 1852. Naturally this city became a magnet for many if the 1.5 million people who emigrated from the Erin Isle after that calamity. Along with the opportunity to find work, and therefore survive, there was hardship as the Irish constituted the first underclass of Chicago. Many of them lived in shantytowns (or ghettos as we'd call them today), west and south of the Central Business District. Anti-Irish sentiment reached its peak after the Great Fire of 1871 which began in one of those shantytowns. A reporter for the Chicago Tribune years later confessed that he made up the story of the fire starting in the barn belonging to the O'Leary Family after the drunken Catherine O'Leary carelessly left a lit lantern in her barn after milking her cow. Despite the reporter's confession, Mrs. O'Leary never lived down the accusation and to this day is still blamed for the fire.

But the Irish did have a great advantage over the other immigrant groups who came to Chicago in the 19th century, they spoke English. Combined with strength in their numbers, and the Roman Catholic Church, Chicago's Irish gained a foothold into the organization of this city, first in the police force, then in politics. The Chicago Democratic political machine may not have been created by the Irish, but it was raised to an art by them and for a good long time, Bridgeport was the political geo-center of the City of Chicago. 

Today in Bridgeport, folks living in million dollar homes in new developments along the river, rub shoulders with the descendants of the old 11th Ward, a neighborhood where vestiges of the past such as the ancient Schaller's Pump, tenaciously clung to life and are only now beginning to disappear. The old Stearns Quarry was converted into a spectacular new park now known as Palmisano Park, which uses its site, a combination of the quarry, and a large landfill hill to great effect.

Likewise, Canal Origins Park takes full advantage of its riverfront setting to create an experience that recreates the natural setting (at least as much as possible in the middle of the city), combined with the experience of present day Chicago. Unlike the Chicago Portage site, with the exception of the river, which itself has been greatly altered, everything at Canal Origins Park is the work of human hands. The design of the park is the concept of earth artist Michael Singer whose plantings of native wild flowers dominate the setting. Cutting through the field of wildflowers, (or as a disgruntled neighborhood visitor to the park called them on my first visit to the park ten years ago, weeds), Singer created a narrow path leading from the street to the river, that is meant to evoke the canal. Along the sides of this path are ceramic friezes created by artist Phil Schuster and students under his direction that depict the story of the canal. Sadly, vandals have done a number on the panels and most of the didactic signage, defacing many them with graffiti. and other means. 

What you will not see at Canal Origins Park is any vestige of the I&M Canal itself, as the section of it at its source was replaced by the dredging of the Ship and Sanitary Canal in 1900.

Field of Black-eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta,
looking south east toward a bridge that carries the CTA Orange Line over Bubbly Creek 

Looking toward South Fork of the Chicago River, popularly known as "Bubbly Creek".

One man's wildflower is another man's weed.
Silphium lacinatum, commonly known as compass plant.
Kudos to my wife for the identification.

Path through park evoking the Illinois and Michigan Canal whose origins this park commemorates.
The path is lined with panels that tell the story of the river and the canal.

Details of one of the panels depicting an early resident of the area,

View from park of the fork of the South Branch of the Chicago River, looking toward Chicago Loop.
The new Chicago Park District boathouse can be seen across Bubbly Creek on the right.

These three places may not be on most folks' bucket lists, but they are places that hold the key to what made Chicago, Chicago. For anyone with more than a passing interest in this town, they're well worth the visit.

Here are the addresses and links to more information about the above sites:

Chicago Portage National Historic Site: 4800 S. Harlem, Lyons, Illinois

Their website

Canal Origins Park: 2701 S. Ashland Avenue

Canal Origins Park on Chicago Park District website

La Villita Park: Main entrance: 2800 S. Sacramento

La Villita Park on Chicago Park District website

A December 11, 2014 Chicago Tribune article on the opening of the park

A Tale of Two Cities

New York City and Chicago are like two siblings born several years apart. The younger sibling, Chicago, is always in its big sibling's shadow, every day trying to prove itself. Meanwhile, the bigger, more successful sibling lives its life as if its pesky younger sibling didn't matter, or even exist. But the two are still family and the fact is, neither would be what they are today without the other.

Civic boosters love to brag about their city's beauty, its architectural gems, great institutions of higher learning, vast cultural amenities, engaging entertainment venues and splendid restaurants. But those things are the fringe benefits of what creates a successful city. Like the snooty character Maris Crane from the sitcom Frazier, who learns that the source of her family fortune is actually the manufacture of urinal cakes, it comes as a bit of a let down for some to learn that what really put their town on the map, are the more mundane items of life, things like fur pelts, metal ingots, bushels of wheat and corn, lumber and pig meat. It's not necessarily the production of these things that makes for a great city, as they are often harvested or manufactured elsewhere; more important are the resources to market and ship those commodities far and wide. The facility to create and nurture industry and commerce, and the transportation conduits to serve them, are the engines that throughout history, have created and sustained great cities.

They say the three most important factors regarding real estate are location, location and location. Perhaps never in the history of human beings creating cities, has there been a natural spot more ideally located to build a great metropolis than the thirteen mile long, hilly, wooded island at the mouth of the Hudson River called Manhattan. The body of water the Hudson empties into, New York Harbor, is one of the great natural harbors of the world, which itself empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Upstream, the Hudson River was a major gateway to the American interior. But that was not all. The port cities of Boston and Baltimore also had great natural harbors that emptied into the Atlantic. Philadelphia, another major port of the Eastern Seaboard, was built upon the banks of the Delaware River, about 50 miles upstream from its mouth, and the great ocean.

The real gold mine that wasn't immediately apparent to the early settlers of New York City, was a gap in the Appalachian Mountains called the Mohawk Pass. That geographic feature, formed by glaciers during the last ice age near the confluence of today's Mohawk and Hudson Rivers, meant there was no mountain barrier between New York City (via Albany, 150 miles upstream on the Hudson), and the midwest. No other major East Coast port could make such a claim. The only break in the great chain of mountains between Canada and the South, provided the opportunity for a canal to be dug in upstate New York between the Hudson River at Albany, and Buffalo, on the eastern shore of Lake Erie. If such a canal could be built, it would connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, and open up a continent.

Erie Canal locks at Lockport, NY.
The difference in elevation between the Hudson River at Albany and Lake Erie
at Buffalo is 565 ft, requiring 35 sets of locks along the course of the canal. 

Two hundred years ago this week, politicians and other muckety mucks stuck their gold plated shovels into the dirt of Rome, New York, marking the beginning of construction of the Erie Canal, the 350 mile long ditch that at the time of its completion in 1825, would forever change the landscape of this country, and the destinies of two of its largest cities, New York and Chicago.

According to the 1830 Census, the six largest American cities all were major salt water ports, five of them on the Eastern Seaboard. In descending order they were New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, New Orleans, and Charleston, SC. That same year, with a population of about 100, Chicago, not yet a city, was a trading post, populated by a mix of French trappers and Potawatomie Indians. The natural geography of Chicago was not as advantageous as New York's as far as building a city. It too was at the mouth of a river that emptied into a major waterway. But unlike the Hudson, the Chicago River was a sluggish stream that was incapable of properly draining the flat topography on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan. Unlike Manhattan which rises several feet above the water level and seldom floods, the natural Chicago was a swamp much of the year. Even its name, taken from the Potawatomie word for the wild onions that grew there, (which you can still smell along the banks of the river on the outskirts of town), evokes the soggy character of the place. By 1830, New York already had an influence on Chicago as its richest man, John Jacob Astor laid claim to part of the fur trade in the distant outpost of the midwest. After the opening of the Erie Canal, New York money would float into Chicago by the boatload, both figuratively and literally.

While Chicago's pool table flat topography didn't make for a pleasant experience underfoot, it did provide the future city with a tremendous advantage over its competing Great Lakes settlements. It turns out there is an ever so slight continental divide, all of about 15 feet, that runs through Chicago, a few miles west of the lake. All the water east of the divide, drains into Lake Michigan, via the Chicago River, while the water west of the divide, slowly finds its way to the Des Plaines River west of the city. That river in turn, flows into the Illinois River, then the Mississippi, and ultimately into the gulf of Mexico. This very small divide meant that in 1830, if you wanted to travel from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi by canoe, from Lake Michigan you could enter the Chicago River and paddle upstream to its source, then portage, depending on the season, for about seven miles to the Des Plaines. During rainy season in spring, the portage distance was minimal or even non-existent. For centuries, Native Americans knew of the Chicago Portage as the most direct connection between the Great Lakes and the Great River. The first Europeans to cross the portage were French explorers Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette in 1673. The Chicago Portage would prove to be a geological godsend for Chicago, just as the Mohawk Gap was for New York City.

As the first half of the nineteenth century was the era of the great canals, New York investors became interested in building a canal that would connect the Chicago River with the navigable Illinois River which, together with the Erie Canal. would complete a transportation network bisecting the northeastern portion of the United States, spanning from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River.

Wild speculation due to the rumors of the imminent building of the western canal attracted investors from the east who hired surveyors to parcel up Chicago's land, then paid exorbitant prices for it. One of the first tangible results of the opening up of the Erie Canal as far as Chicago was concerned, was the ending of the peaceable existence between settlers of European origin, and the Native American residents of the region. For a century and a half, the Potawatomie could understand the ways of the white man as far as trading for goods and services were concerned. They could even accept European capitalism at its most basic level. The Native American people and the French trappers lived peacefully together in Chicago, intermarried, and respected each other's property, so long as the owner occupied his land. But cultural differences prevented the Potawatomie, as most Native American people, from accepting the European practice of buying and selling land as a commodity. To the Potawatomie, it made no sense that you could claim land you did not occupy, anymore than you could lay claim to the air or to water.

As the land of Chicago was subdivided and the easterners bought it sight unseen, the Potawatomie kept living upon land that was bought out from under them. Something had to give and as was the case one hundred percent of the time in conflicts between the Native American people and the settlers of European descent, the white man won. Land swaps (swindles if you prefer) were arranged, treaties were forged, and the Potawatomie, along with those of mixed Native American and European heritage who once called Chicago home, were displaced to reservations in the hinterland. Almost overnight, Chicago went from being a French (Catholic)/Indian outpost, to an Anglo (Protestant) city.

The first mover and shaker from New York to move here and call Chicago home, was real estate man, William Butler Ogden. Ogden was hardly impressed with the muddy, free-for-all backwater trading post when he first set foot in Chicago in 1835 . But along with the wild onions, Ogden could smell money. He made a tidy sum selling off some of the by then, over-inflated property his family had purchased before his arrival. Ogden stayed on in Chicago buying and selling real estate and making a fortune. The City of Chicago was formally incorporated on March 4, 1837 and William Butler Ogden was elected its first mayor. When the city became broke during a national panic, Ogden paid off the city's bills by issuing an IOU backed up by his own funds.

Both as mayor, which only lasted eight months, and thereafter, Ogden was instrumental in turning Chicago into a dynamic city. Ogden connected Chicago to its outlying farms by means of plank roads. He built bridges, including the first swing bridge spanning the Chicago River, and encouraged the growth of commerce and industry. With help from his New York investment friends, Ogden turned a backwater settlement into a major city that would be connected to the east, and the rest of the world, by means of the Erie Canal.

The Illinois and Michigan Canal flowing through Utica, Illinois

Ogden was a principal supporter and investor in the Illinois and Michigan Canal which upon its completion in 1848, would span 96 miles between the Chicago neighborhood of Bridgeport, to the towns of La Salle and Peru, Illinois, thereby completing the last link of the waterway system that would connect the Atlantic and the Mississippi, and all points in between.

By the 1850 Census, Chicago's population rose in twenty years from 100 to nearly 30,000. That was only the beginning. By greatly reducing the time it took to ship goods and transport people to and from the East Coast, the new system of waterways began the process of Chicago supplanting the great port city on the Mississippi, St. Louis, as the transportation hub of the midwest. But almost as soon as the I&M Canal was built, a new and far quicker (if not necessarily more efficient) means of transportation came along. St. Louis probably could have stemmed the tide of losing its role as a transportation hub, had it only accepted change and moved along with the times. But that city was in the grips of the steamboat industry who exerted its control over blocking the construction of a railway bridge across the Mississippi River at St. Louis.  Instead, a bridge was built about 200 miles upstream at Rock Island, Illinois meaning all trains coming from the west headed directly to Chicago. In contrast to the single-minded investors and city fathers of St. Louis, William Ogden, who was already heavily invested in the I&M Canal, made an about face and turned his interests, and those of his city, to the railroad, thereby leaving St. Louis and its moribund economic engine, in the dust.

This image illustrates the motive power of the Erie Canal in the 19th century,
horses, or in this case mules pulling a boat along their towpath.

By the 1850s, railroads had also taken away much of the business from the Erie Canal, yet the impact of that magnificent public works project, had already changed the nation in countless ways. The canal opened up the Midwest to the rest of the country, making places like Chicago possible. It provided a vast network of westward immigration, changing the primary axis of movement of the country from North-South, up the Mississippi River, to East-West, via the canal. Historians believe this had many profound implications for the development of the country, not the least of which being the exacerbation of the division between North and South which led to the American Civil War. The theory goes something like this: Southerners, who were for the most part sympathetic to slavery, moved up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers into southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. That move was countered by the western movement of New Englanders, most of whom were abolitionists, to the upper Midwest via the Erie Canal. Had it not been for the canal, the Union might very well have had to fight the war without the help of the key states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Nowhere was the objection to build the Erie Canal greater than in New York City. Believing the project to be a boondoggle, pork barrel that would only benefit Upstate New York, the city's politicians dubbed the project, "Clinton's Ditch" and "Clinton's folly", after its chief sponsor, New York governor DeWitt Clinton. The canal opponents were wrong. While the completed waterway did greatly benefit both the agricultural and urban areas of Upstate New York,  the canal also made New York City successful beyond its wildest dreams. Because of the Canal, of all the nation's great Atlantic sea ports, only New York had direct access to the Midwest. Lumber harvested in the great forests of Wisconsin and Michigan could be floated down rivers to be rough milled, then sailed down Lake Michigan to Chicago, where it would be cut to size and finished, then sent on to New York, from where it could be sent anywhere in the world. Crops shipped to Chicago via the I&M Canal would be stored in that city's enormous grain elevators, then sent east when it was needed. Pigs rendered into salt-pork in Chicago's packing plants, steel and all other manner of manufactured goods, made in Chicago, found their way east to New York and beyond. This movement of products, commodities, and people only intensified after the railroads were built between the two cities which followed the same route as the Erie Canal, taking advantage of the Mohawk Pass. Consequently New York became unquestionably the most important ocean port in the United States, and Chicago, the most important inland port. New York also became this nation's banking capital, thanks in part to the financing of the massively complicated and expensive construction of the Canal.

The tremendous opposition to the building of the Erie Canal begs the question, what if the Erie Canal had not been built? It's inconceivable that the westward expansion of the United States would not have taken place without the canal, it just would have been delayed a decade or two as railroads would have taken on the role that the canal served. But those decades were pivotal. Had the western migration of New Englanders been delayed for a couple of decades, they would not have tempered the migration of Southerners into the Midwest. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois may have remained slave states with their sympathies pointing in the direction of the Confederacy. It's hard to imagine such an Illinois electing Abraham Lincoln to Congress, let alone to the presidency of the United States. How Lincoln not being on the scene would have played out insofar as the Civil War and the issue of slavery in the United States is anybody's guess.

It's highly likely that had the Erie Canal not been built, Chicago would not exist, at least not as a major city. Without the influx of major investment from the east, a direct result of the Erie Canal, there would have been no capital to convert it from a swampy backwater marsh into a reasonable facsimile of a city. Much less would there have been the funds to build the Illinois and Michigan Canal which put the city on the map as far as being a transportation hub. With no canals and no Chicago money to build railroads that would go through here, it's very unlikely that the outpost swamp that Chicago would have certainly remained had it not been for the canals, would have been more than a whistlestop on the trunk line between Galena and Toledo, two towns that could very easily have been in contention for being the transportation hub of the Midwest.

When the Erie Canal was completed, New York was already a thriving city, the most populous in the United States . While the populations of most of the major U.S. cities increased incrementally during the 19th Century, New York's exploded after the construction of the Canal. The 1860 census showed that in the thirty years since the Canal's opening, the population of New York City (not including Brooklyn which at the time was a separate city) more than quadrupled. By 1880, New York became the first American city whose population topped one million. No other big American city grew as quickly, except that is, Chicago. In those same thirty years since the opening of the canal, Chicago's population went from 100, to 112,000, breaking into the top ten list of American cities. Ten years after New York broke the million mark, Chicago did the same, finishing for the first time as the second largest city in the United States, in the 1890 census.

The Erie Canal carried over the Genesee River in Rochester, NY by means of an aqueduct.
Unlike Chicago, Upstate New York municipalities such as Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse, to name a few,
already existed as cities before the canal, but their fortunes greatly improved when the canal opened.

It is absolutely certain that Chicago's astounding growth was a direct result of the Erie Canal, and almost certain that New York's was as well. It's all conjecture but without the canal, the first railroads headed east may have decided not to turn right at Albany, but head straight for Boston, where the entry of trains was not quite as prohibitive as on the isle of Manhattan. Had it not been for the canal system that went all the way to the Mississippi, the steamboat companies might not have felt as threatened by the competition and consented to the railroads crossing through their town. If that were the case, the trains originating in St. Louis (which certainly would have been the transportation hub of the midwest), might have made the more direct trip to Baltimore or Philadelphia, greatly increasing the profitability of those citys' ports.

No matter how you slice it, The United States would be a vastly different place had the state of New York chosen not to think big and build that 350 mile ditch. To those of us in Chicago who love this city, the next time we have dinner after we take in a game at Wrigley Field, visit the Art Institute, go to the theater, spend an evening at the Symphony, or just walk along the lakefront, let's all make sure to raise a glass to DeWitt Clinton and to all the workers who gave their blood sweat, tears, and some of them their lives, digging the Erie Canal.

Because without them, we'd be nothing.

Way to go Governor Walker

This article in the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel slams the transportation priorities of the current administration up in the Badger State, claiming Wisconsin's ever diminishing funding for public transportation in favor of highway spending is hurting the state as young, educated individuals are increasingly looking to live in places that are: "more walkable, bikeable and transit-friendly communities where lifestyles are less dependent on driving." Consequently the folks who were enticed to Wisconsin by its excellent educational institutions, are looking elsewhere to live once they graduate.

Another article from Madison's Capital Times notes that Talgo, a train manufacturing company has shuttered its plant in Milwaukee as a result of Governor Scott Walker's refusal of 810 million dollars in federal money targeted toward high speed rail construction. According to the article:

Talgo is now suing the state for $65 million for the state's reneging on its Talgo contract, and Wisconsin has to foot the bill for a multimillion-dollar maintenance facility and handicap accessibility upgrade at the Milwaukee station, all of which would have been covered by the $810 million federal grant.

Not to say I told you so, but you know what?

I told you so.

Two inches?

We here in Chicago are feeling not a little smug these days as news reports coming from the great city of Atlanta tell us that city came to a standstill this week because of two inches of snow. In Chicago, an incapacitating snowfall is measured in feet not in inches so it does seem a little ridiculous to us that two measly inches would cause such a fuss.

Chicago this month has had its own problems with the severe winter, schools and places of business have closed due to unusually cold temperatures. Of course cold and snow of any kind is unusual in the Sun Belt; consequently cities like Atlanta are not equipped to deal with the white stuff. The entire city I'm told has all of three trucks equipped with snow plowing apparatus, and folks there have little experience driving on snow and ice, not to mention adequate clothing for sub-freezing temps. Consequently many Atlantans were stranded in their cars for up to 24 hours in the cold, trying to get home from work. Before we get too cheeky up here in Chi-town about our friends' plight in the Peach State, we have to remember it's all relative. I have no doubt that people in places like Minneapolis and Winnipeg are laughing at us right now for bitching and moaning about our chilly weather.

But two inches, really?

Sorry, I got a little carried away. A city after all can't be expected to come through unscathed whenever there's a once in fifty year weather event. I'm reminded of the 1979 blizzard in Chicago. Over a period of three days, about 200 feet of snow fell on this city. OK that's a bit of an exaggeration. Anyway the mayor at the time, Michael Bilandic was asked why the city was so slow in dealing with the snow problem. His answer, "what snow problem?", cost him his job. I can still see the famous campaign commercial of his soon-to-be successor, Jane Byrne. She wasted no time taking advantage of Bilandic's miscue by standing outside in the middle of the blizzard promising voters that if she were elected mayor, it would never snow again. She won the election and gosh darn it, we haven't had that much snow since. The other result of that blizzard is this: such is the fear of a repeat of the Bilandic fiasco, at the mere mention of the possibility of a trace of snow, the sitting mayor orders the entire fleet of plows and salt spreaders onto the streets. This city dumps so much salt on the streets in the winter that you can literally taste it in the air. It's not uncommon to see more salt on the streets than snow, although rumors of children in Chicago building saltmen are urban legend.

That's beginning to change. Due to budgetary constraints, we simply don't have as much money to spend on salt as we used to. It's mere speculation, but since our current mayor has aspirations other than being mayor for life, perhaps he's not quite so gung ho about dumping salt before the snow even starts to fall. A couple of weeks ago on a Sunday, we got about a foot of snow (no exaggeration) and at least in my neighborhood, there were no plows to be seen for most of the day. Still, people managed to get out, walking and driving about town without too much fuss. Of course most people in this town at least own a snow shovel.

My guess is that most people in Atlanta don't. Still, two inches?

I was transfixed on the TV while eating lunch today. The entire broadcast dealt with Atlanta's snow problem. There were helicopter shots of highways filled with stranded vehicles, people checking in to hotels after abandoning their vehicles, and live coverage of the Governor of Georgia apologizing to his constituents at a press conference for the chaos that ensued after their ahem, snowstorm. He's up for election later this year  and my guess is that the press conference was largely damage control. While politicians can't be blamed for bad weather, all indications point to the fact that the city of Atlanta and the State of Georgia screwed up:

• Turns out there was a severe ice storm a few years back in the area with much the same results. 
• This storm had been predicted for many days, heck I even knew it was coming thanks to a Facebook friend, so there was plenty of time to prepare. 
• When the storm began, the city advised businesses to send their employees home early without any thought of staggering release times, meaning that everyone was out on the roads at exactly the time the storm was at is worst.

But it's a double edged sword. Had government officials told people not to come in to work at all in anticipation of bad weather and the storm had proven not to be severe, you can bet there would have been hell to pay due to lost production and revenue from those businesses. It's a crap shoot and this time the local and state officials lost.

A few years ago, we had a bad storm that dumped between two and three feet (again, no exaggeration) on the city. Everybody knew it was coming for about a week, and almost everybody was prepared. Still, several motorists were stranded on Lake Shore Drive in snow drifts that literally covered cars up to their windshields and higher. Few however felt much sympathy for those people as they simply defied logic by driving that day.

That's not to say the folks in Atlanta should have been more prepared; the real culprit is the fact that Atlanta and so many other cities like it are designed around the automobile, allowing for little or no other transportation options. Here in Chicago when we were confronted with the very real threat of a major blizzard hitting later in the day, most everybody who elected not to stay home that day, chose not to drive to work. That meant even if they got stranded on say, a bus, they could get off and walk to a transportation alternative, or simply walk home. That is not an option in a city like Atlanta where most people live several miles from where they work and have no option other than driving.

The good news is that despite being terribly inconvenienced, people in Atlanta experienced something we experience up here in the Snow Belt more often: the misfortune of a community bringing people together. There were lots of stories of people helping out strangers by opening their doors to them, by bringing food, or simply commiserating with one another. Here is a link to a feature made by the Atlanta CBS affiliate featuring the husband of a friend of mine among others, helping out. I remember three years ago when we had our last big blizzard, people were nicer to each other. I have nothing but good memories of that experience and I imagine given some distance from the event, most Atlantans will feel the same. Nothing brings people together more than shared misery. As they say, if it doesn't kill you it only makes you stronger.

I close with some words of wisdom from Facebook. Yes between all the babble and photographs of cats you can find some real wisdom there. One friend posted that he found the terms describing our recent arctic blast, namely "Polar Vortex" and Chiberia" to be rather unsatisfactory. One of his friends replied: "I just call it January." The winner came from another friend who posted this:

If you're not homeless, please don't complain about the weather.

I rather liked that one. Try to stay warm everybody.

Cable Cars

The fantastic site Forgotten Chicago, has this piece on a largely forgotten piece of Chicago history, its cable car system.

Legend has it that Andrew Hallidie, an engineer and manufacturer of wire rope, came up with the idea for cable cars one day while walking up one of San Franciso's steep hills. In the middle of a snowstorm, he saw a team of horses struggling to pull a streetcar up the slippery grade, then lose their grip on the pavement, sending them and the car and its passengers sliding and crashing at the bottom of the hill.

Hallidie's idea was to propel the cars up and down the hills by means of an onboard mechanical gripping system that a "gripman" would engage onto a continuously moving underground cable. Hallidie's invention is a classic example of 19th Century brilliance and audacity. Building such a system was an enormous undertaking, requiring a tremendous amount of maintenance. But it was a brilliant solution that worked perfectly well for the absurdly steep hills of the City by the Bay. As it does to this day as three lines still exist transporting mostly tourists.

Even without hills, the system worked pretty well in Chicago as well, ours would become the largest cable car system built anywhere. It wouldn't last long however as the cumbersome system was replaced by the much simpler system of self-propelled streetcars in 1906 after only 24 years of operation.

The Forgotten Chicago article lists some extant remnants of the old cable car system, including vehicle barns and power plants. These buildings contained the enormous steam engines with their gigantic pulleys that set miles of cable in motion. One of these buildings stands today at LaSalle and Illinois Streets,  you may know it as the building that once housed Michael Jordan's Restaurant.

The most famous remnant of the cable car system however is the term we use to describe our downtown. The term "the Loop" was originally coined to describe the loop of cable cars that once circled Chicago's central business district, an area much larger than the area defined by today's L tracks.

An interesting fact I recently learned about San Francisco's cable cars is that one of the early investors in the system was one Abner Doubleday, who is today most famous as being the man mistakenly credited with the invention of baseball. He may not have invented the National Pastime but among other significant achievements, was indeed a big player in what would become one of the coolest transportation systems ever invented.

If you ever find yourself in San Francisco, by all means treat yourself to a cable car ride. If you dare, don't sit inside but stand on the platform and hang over the edge as the little Powell-Hyde car makes its way up Russian Hill. It may sound hokey but it is indeed one of the greatest urban experiences anywhere.

A case for walking

Urban planner Jeff Speck has written a new book called Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America One Step at a Time. I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet but here is a capsule review from the site Brain Pickings. Here is an interview with him from the blog DC.Streets.

Speck's views are nothing new, he is channelling the work of Jane Jacobs who wrote the groundbreaking book The Death and Life of Great American Cities back in the early sixties. In Speck's words:

We’ve known for three decades how to make livable cities — after forgetting for four — yet we’ve somehow not been able to pull it off. Jane Jacobs, who wrote in 1960, won over the planners by 1980. But the planners have yet to win over the city.

Jacobs' startling idea was that cities as they had been built for millennia actually worked, and that two generations of "progressive" urban planning led to lifeless, boring cities. As Speck points out today, Jacobs' work turned out to be prophetic; fifty years after the publication of her book, people are finding old fashioned, big, congested, walkable cities very attractive places in which to live. In contrast, newer cities emphasizing open space and convenience built around the automobile are falling into disfavor. Yet we continue to build them.

Speck's argument is that while planners today do accept Jacobs' work, they continue to answer the demand to design cities to be the servant of the automobile rather than the other way around. The typical response in this country to complaints about bad traffic is to build more roads. And the inevitable result of more road construction is this: more people getting into their cars creating even more congestion. The solution to more congestion is, guess what, more roads.

Now take Chicago. Anyone who has lived here for a while, knows that driving in this city has progressively become more and more of a hassle in recent years. Congestion on the roads has gotten much worse not to mention that parking, especially in the Loop has become prohibitively expensive. When I drive I admit myself to cursing the bad condition of the roads, the seemingly endless construction delays, and the ridiculously expensive parking. Conventional wisdom might say this is a bad thing; the hassle factor keeps people away from the city. Adding traffic lanes to ease congestion and building more parking lots in the Loop would certainly reduce at least some of that hassle.

But not so fast. It is not necessary to drive in Chicago. This is one of the very few places to live in the United States where owning a car is not a prerequisite. True our public transportation system leaves much to be desired, but it is a functional system just the same that is light years ahead of those of most other cities in this country. What's more, there are transportation alternatives in Chicago that go beyond public transportation. Chicago remains a very walkable city and day by day strives to become more bike friendly.

Reducing the number of cars on the road seems to be the most reasonable solution to our traffic congestion problems. Other big cities around the world have recognized this and have proposed charging drivers a fee for the privilege of driving in their central business districts. Chicago seems to be doing it inadvertently. Bad planning and budget restraints have resulted in the crumbling infrastructure of our highways. Former mayor Richard M. Daley's sale of parking meter revenue to a private concern has come under a great deal of scrutiny, not the least of which is the fact that the company that now owns the right to charge us to park on the city's streets has continually raised their parking fees. "Unfair" cry the critics, including myself at times. But in reality, these cases of what seem to be bad policy, may in fact be working in our favor. If people insist on driving downtown, which they certainly continue to do, they must pay a price in both time and money. Those who don't care to pay that price, find a plethora of alternatives to get around town, including walking.

Building cities around the automobile creates an endless cycle of road construction, increased automobile usage, and congestion. Building cities around the pedestrian creates another cycle: as more people walk around the city, more amenities for them are created. The more amenities, the more vibrant and interesting the city becomes, which attracts more people. Speck's conclusion is that generalists such as mayors, who have a vision the direction the city should take are better to be in charge of urban planning rather than specialists like public works commissioners, who are more concerned with solving specific problems, such as traffic congestion.

Not surprisingly, Jeff Speck cites New York, San Francisco and Chicago as examples of vibrant, walkable cities in the U.S. that have a bright future. Whether by design or just dumb luck, we end up ahead in the long run by making driving less attractive.

In case you're interested, here's an interactive map of the United States that describes state by state how people commute to work. Not too many surprises.

Another conspiracy theory put to rest...

Here's a misleading article that appears in today's Huffington Post titled Creeps and Weirdos: The Auto Industry Agenda for Keeping You on Four Wheels. 

The article was picked up by Nation of Change, a left leaning political organization who has without my permission added me to their mailing list. In other words they're spamming me. Anyway, the article starts out by mentioning a guy in LA who doesn't himself drive but parks his bike in his rented parking space. His building's management wrote and told him the spot's for cars only and to cease and desist with parking the bike in said space. To me that seems a trifle silly, but there probably exists a reasonable, amicable solution for both parties, not something worth basing an article on in a national publication.

Then the article brings up two print ads for GM that appeared in college papers at one time or other. One ad consists of a photograph of a bus whose destination sign reads "Creeps and Weirdos" with an inset reading "Luckily there's an alternative" and goes on to describe reasonable rates for purchasing a Chevy Cavalier. The other ad features a photograph of a guy on a bike shielding his face from an attractive woman in a car. The ad implies the sly smile on her face means she's smirking at him for riding a bike and not driving. The copy reads: "Reality Sucks, luckily the GM College Discount Doesn't", then adds details about buying a car and a pickup for low rates.

The Huff Post article excoriates GM for trying to use "shame" to manipulate consumers away from using means of transportation other than the automobile. It goes on to list all the obvious reasons why we should shun our cars in favor of those very alternative means such as bikes and public transportation.

Fair enough, I've been saying exactly the same things about alternative transportation on this blog for nearly three years. What the Huff Post article does not mention is that both ads, the bus one which appeared in Vancouver six years ago, and the bike one which appeared more recently in a few college rags in the US, were both roundly criticized by readers and the plug was pulled on both of them almost as soon as they first appeared.

Now I'm as much of an advocate of riding bikes and taking public transportation as the next guy, but frankly I don't take these ads at all seriously, nor am I offended by them in the least. To me they're just cheeky ads that are trying their best to get folks' attention and get them to buy their product. That's what advertising is all about.

After all, all's fair in love, war and advertising, and if people are dumb enough to let an ad convince them that they should get off their bikes and into a car, well shame on them.

All I can say is let the buyer beware and let's lighten up for gosh sake.

Slow down, Big Brother is watching

Automated cameras for years have been installed at selected traffic intersections in Chicago to catch drivers going through red lights. Mayor Emanuel has announced that he would like to see the use of these traffic control devices extended, especially in the vicinity of schools and parks to catch speeders. His stated reason is to protect the children of our city from reckless drivers. Well, who's not in favor of that? Of course if you believe that's the real reason behind the cameras, then I'd like to personally welcome you back from your forty year visit to Never Never Land.

Everyone else knows that at one hundred bucks a pop, catching misbehaving drivers red handed is a cash cow for the city. According to this article in the Chicago Tribune, in 2009, the red light cameras netted 59 million dollars for the city. The city certainly needs the money. As someone who has two school age children and who commutes to work primarily by bicycle, I should be cheering the mayor's new initiative. If only I had a dime for every time I was cut off on the road by a speeding driver and thought: "Where's a police officer when you need one?"

Yet I'm skeptical. As far as I know, studies on the effectiveness of Chicago's red light cameras have been inconclusive. As a driver for well over thirty years, I know that safe driving doesn't depend on slavishly adhering to the rules of the road, but on carefully observing and accessing traffic conditions, and driving accordingly. A safe driver could be completely aware of his surroundings, but be breaking the law if by going with the flow of traffic he is exceeding the speed limit. Another driver could be completely distracted by a conversation, drinking coffee and switching the dial of his radio, all at the same time. If that driver is traveling at the speed limit however, he is not breaking the law. Under the mayor's proposed new use of the cameras, the first driver would get the ticket.

A flesh and blood police officer can make appropriate judgments about safe driving, a camera and a computer cannot. It's just a cold and calculated machine that works 24/7, night and day, rain or shine, without lunch, overtime or a doughnut break, and won't let the driver off with a warning. There is no question of guilt or innocence, no mitigating circumstances, no conceivable justification for one's actions, just a photograph with the conclusive evidence, your car is in the middle of the intersection and the light is red, one hundred dollars please. You have a week to contest but what's the point? If you wait longer than a week, you owe another hundred dollars.

Small wonder the city loves them.

There's no doubt that there will be much opposition to Mayor Emanuel's plan, but I have little doubt that he will get his way. Let's hope that this technology will work to our benefit and will result in fewer accidents. Not that it matters but if they actually do the job they're supposed to do, I would support the speed cameras whole-heartedly.

Until I get a ticket.

Too kind to the pedestrian?

The steam came out of my ears as I heard these words coming out of the mouth of the new radio talk guy from out of town: "We're a little bit too pedestrian friendly in Chicago." I came close to doing something I've never done before, calling up the yak-meister on the air and tell him he was full of crap. But as he was disposing of callers that disagreed with him, I saw little point.

His rant was inspired by the city's announcement about rethinking some pedestrian crosswalks in order to give people on foot more time to cross the street in a safer environment. This would include traffic lights at intersections turning red for 14 seconds every other minute for vehicular traffic in both directions, allowing pedestrians to cross the intersection in either direction, in some cases diagonally.

Radio-guy claimed that we already have too many laws that benefit the rights of pedestrians over those of drivers, "It seems that drivers have more headaches than pedestrians" he said.

Now I for one, don't see much problem with that.

One of the callers expressed frustration about having to stop at stop signs for pedestrian crosswalks in shopping mall parking lots, as it wastes so much gas. He then suggested they have stop signs for the pedestrians instead adding: "people should yield as much as cars."

Interesting choice of words there, it seems he's saying that cars should have the same rights as people. I didn't know that cars had any rights at all!

On the surface, the argument makes some sense; everybody should observe the rules of the road equally, that way, everybody will be safe.

Thinking about it for a second or two however, pedestrians, bicyclists, are motorists are definitely NOT equal.

In a grudge match between an automobile and a pedestrian, I'm taking the automobile every time. Between a car and a bike? Same result. Clearly in the battle over the rules of the road, the greater burden of responsibility has to lie with the person in control of the bigger, faster vehicle, in other words, the person capable of doing the most damage.

This bit of common sense has been with us ever since the invention of the automobile. In short, the pedestrian has the right of way. Apparently, the out of town yaptrap wants to change all that.

Were it not for automobiles and other motor vehicles, there would be no need for rules of the road. There are no legally binding rules of the sidewalk for pedestrians. In my entire life, I have never heard horrifying tales of accidents involving hit and run pedestrians.

On the very crowded lakefront bicycle path that I use daily, you have pedestrians, joggers, dog walkers, as well as people using any number modes of wheeled transportation devices, all traveling at different speeds and trajectories. Chaotic as it is, a few unwritten hints such as ride on the right, pass on the left are sufficient. Using these tips, most people get by quite nicely. That is not to say that accidents don't occur. Some of my worst bike accidents (a few of them admittedly my own fault) happened on the bike path. But with the exception of where the bike path crosses streets with automobile traffic, it's extremely rare that we hear of accidents resulting in serious injury or death.

Obviously the same cannot be said about our roads and highways. The good news is that from 2009 to 2010, the number of traffic fatalities in the U.S. dropped three percent. Unfortunately automobile accidents took the lives of more than 32,000 people in the United States last year. That is not to mention the incredible toll taken on the environment from automobiles and the apparatus needed to sustain them.

To prove he's not biased, the guy on the radio pointed out that he is not only a driver but also a pedestrian and a bicyclist. Well I do all three as well, in fact I listened to his rant while driving. Whenever I get behind the wheel, I adhere to the rules of the road in order to protect the safety of my fellow drivers as well as my own. I give bicyclists a wide berth and am always looking out for pedestrians, especially children darting unexpectedly into traffic. The knowledge that I could conceivably maim or kill another human being if I make even a small mistake while driving, gives me pause and is never far from my mind. I can't imagine how anyone driving a car can't have those same thoughts, but after many years of life experience, it is clear that many do not.

When I ride my bike I'm equally conscious of yielding the right of way to pedestrians, but I don't worry about being much threat to motorists or other bicyclists. And when I'm a pedestrian, I don't think that I'm much of a threat at all. How anyone can see the burden of responsibility for these three activities as equal is beyond my understanding.

That's not to say at all that I condone reckless behavior for pedestrians and bicyclists. Everyone is ultimately responsible for his or her own safety, not to mention the safety of others. In the case of an accident, it's of little consequence who is at fault if someone is seriously injured or killed.

Much of the grief coming from disgruntled drivers has to do with the undeniable fact that traffic is getting worse. But can anyone tell me with a straight face that the main reason for bad traffic is all the bikes and pedestrians on the road?

That's ridiculous of course, traffic is bad because of all the CARS on the road. I've linked to this page before and couldn't resist linking it again. Scroll down and check out the side by side pictures, one of forty people and forty cars taking up an entire city block, and the other of the same forty people and a city bus that can contain them all, obviously taking up far less space. Now picture those forty people without the bus, as pedestrians. Imagine how little space they take up. A motorist with any sense at all should be happy when people give up their cars in order to walk or ride their bikes. I've said it before and I'll say it again, no driver ever has this lament: "boy if only there were more cars on the road."

No I think the aggravation comes from something much deeper in the human psyche. It's the idea that somebody else is able to do something you're not, as if these whining drivers are saying to anybody who is willing to listen: "Gee mom, it's not fair, Jimmy gets to go through the red light and I don't."

Like any good mother, in the spirit of our new mayor the city is telling them: "It's OK Johnny, you'll still be able to get to where you're going before Jimmy does. Now have some milk and a cookie, go to bed, and shut the f--- up."

Remedy for Global Warming: Cities yes, Suburbs, no

Imagine your child having to ride a school bus two blocks to school because there is no safe way for her to walk there.

In the words of Tevye the Milkman: "Sounds crazy, no?"

An insightful article from Jon Hilkevitch in the Tribune earlier this month chronicles the absurdity of the design of new suburban communities that make little or no accommodations for transportation other than the motor vehicle.

As for the havoc this is causing to the environment, here are a some interesting stats from the article:

• "Transportation accounts for two-thirds of all the oil consumed in the U.S. and one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA"
• "The number of vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. is doubling every generation, according to the Federal Highway Administration."

Meaning that the stringent emission controls on automobiles these days are offset by the increase in the amount of miles driven by Americans.

In other words, we're polluting now as much or more than ever.

The sad fact is that while the detriments of automobiles vs. the benefits of alternative modes of transportation are well known and appreciated throughout society, we continue to design our communities around the private automobile.

The solution some say, are new technologies that make cars more fuel efficient with cleaner burning engines. But in a telling quote from the article, “It’s not what car you drive, but how you do not drive a car”

And where is it still possible in the United States to lead a normal life without driving a car? I can think of only a handful of places, and they're all big cities whose basic layout and infrastructure dates back at least 100 years. In cities like New York, Boston, and San Francisco, public transportation is much more practical than the absurd hassles involved with car ownership.

In other older cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia, it's more of a tossup with both adequate public transportation, and plenty of amenities for drivers.

That's about it. virtually everywhere else in this country, driving is not seen as a choice but a necessity.

Now if we could convince our fellow Chicagoans to make the choice to scale back their driving, we'll be on the right track.

More to follow...