It was an extraordinary aldermanic broadside against the Illinois Department of Transportation and its of the iconic Chicago road now formally known as North Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable Lake Shore Drive (NDLSD), perhaps the most beautiful and famous ribbon of asphalt in the Midwest. “ ,” a group of aldermen wrote in our Opinion section June 7, hardly mincing words and essentially summoning IDOT to explain itself before the City Council. “We believe this project as currently proposed does not represent our communities’ interests and the long-term viability, accessibility, and value of our neighborhoods and lakefront.
” The issue? Cars. The aldermen, who are supported by a yet-broader group of advocates, don’t like them, want them nor wish them to be so warmly accommodated (for free) as in the past. “We want modern solutions that prioritize non-car travel and put pedestrians, cyclists, public transit users, recreation, green space, commercial growth and property values ahead of cars,” they wrote.
We’ll get to the specific issues in a moment with NDLSD, which is driven by some 170,000 vehicles a day, according to IDOT, but let’s first acknowledge that Chicago is the site of an intense, activist campaign to get people out of their cars and realign the city so transit and bikes will rule the roost. It’s not just about adding capacity for those forms of transportation, which was the argument typically used in the past. It’s now just as much about disincentiv.