Built Chicago

The Tribune is reporting that we may get "bus-only lanes". (A.k.a. bus-rapid-transit) The locations are not official yet, but one location could be Lake Shore Drive. I would also like to suggest Western Ave. Michigan Ave would be nice also.

This topic has been discussed here on this site before. This is a great step forward, but I am a big picture person. Why does the denses part of the city, the lake front, not have its own "L" line? BRT is a good start, but we need something better.

I also like the fact that we took NYC's money. Not so second now, are we?

Via Gapers Block:

A beautiful photo essay on the photos of Wayne Miller of the south side Chicago in the 40s. (Some good blues also.)

Apparently there is a book also. It has a nice some nice background info on the pictures.

Next time you think the L is packed, it could be worse. (And the officials are helping!)

http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/08040701.html

(From Planetizen)

Image taken by ChicagoEye on Flickr. You might want to check out some more of ChicagoEye's photos. He has some good photo documentation. Also check out his website.

According to this Crain's article, there is some opposition on the redevelopment of Lake Meadows. Sounds like some good old NIMBYism. Some other interesting words were used during the meeting also, "a gentrification plan" and "ethnic cleansing".

Last week CTA got a boost of money from the city. This money is suppose to help update our "1920 system". As we are trying to be the greenest city, it is nice to see CTA getting on board by using recycled content in the railroad ties.

At a joint press conference with the mayor, CTA President Ron Huberman displayed the new type of rail ties made from recycled tires and rubber-insulated tie plates, which are replacing sections of track. He said the new equipment will make for a quieter, smoother ride -- lowering noise by as much as six decibels in the subway.

This brings me to my real point, why are all of the new station renovations not green? I live off the brown line, and I don't think I have seen a single sustainable effort in the renovation of the stations. No recycled lumber for the station platforms. No photovoltaic panels. No solar thermal panels for heat. No LED lighting. So many opportunities, so many things missed. I have even heard of a project that tried to capture the heat generated by all of the people waiting for the train to heat an adjacent building. A simple heat exchanger and we are set, free energy.

Image from the Chicago History Museum.

Drive by Jackson park every week going to my job site, I often have trouble imagining the scale of the World's Columbian Exposition. Just think, The Museum of Science of Industry was one of dozens of buildings that made up a huge temporary campus that accommodated millions of people. MIS is a huge building. Now multiple that by 20. That was the Columbian Expo. I guess my dream is going to come true, MIS now has a virtual reality of what the Columbian Exposition would have looked like.

If you want to get a sneak peak, check out UCLA's (the people that created it) renderings of it.

Image from Built Chicago group on Flickr, take by Luiz Castro.

It might currently be -1 outside today, but just think, summer is around the corner! This means that it is time for "Bike the Drive" again! If you don't know what this is, 'Bike the Drive' is the one time a year (the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend) where the city shuts down Lake Shore Drive and lets the bicyclist take it over. Thousands of people, kids, and dogs all show up for this rare opportunity. To call yourself a true Chicagoan, you must do this once in your lifetime. Registration is now open.

For more pictures, check these out on Flickr. Literally, thousands of people! Plus it will remind you of those warmer days ahead. As I say, "Chicagoans survive winter, to celebrate the summers."

In today's Crain's, there is an interesting article about how Daniel Burnham affected our everyday lives here in Chicago. After all of the transit funding problems, I find this quote interesting:

The community will get far more out of its million workers when their nerves cease to be wracked by irritating conditions.

Preservation Chicago has offered its latest list of the most endangered buildings in Chicago. This year they are:

1. Chicago Landmarks Ordinance
2. American Book Company Building
3. Devon Avenue Commercial District
4. Grant Park
5. Booker Building
6. Daily News Building and Plaza
7. Norwood Park

Most notable from my perspective is the Landmarks Ordinance. As Lynn Becker and others have exclaimed in the last year since the Farwell Building controversy, Landmarks Commission decisions may mean the ordinance has no meaning, offers no protection for the landmark buildings.

However, the ordinance is going to turn 40 this year and, with the rest of the preservation movement, it is time to develop a new philosophy of preservation, new strategies, and new legal mechanisms for promoting retention of important structures and accommodating new development

The modern preservation movement was nationalized with LBJ's launch of the Great Society programs, resulting in the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act creating the National Register of Historic Places and followed by state-level legislation providing for protection of individual properties or districts based on historic criteria and development patterns. The legal basis for preservation protection, like zoning, has been the police power inherent in state and federal constitutions to protect the health, safety, welfare, and morals of the people (see Euclid v. Ambler).

However, a large part of the strategies and justifications of the preservation movement were devised during a period of urban decentralization and urban renewal efforts that sought to modernize and redevelop buildings, sites and neighborhoods in an entirely different (and auto-oriented) mode. This period has largely ended and the middle-class has been tending to move back into central cities for the last 10 to 20 years (depending on the metro region). Within this new development and demographic context, planners and architects have been working to reforming the prevailing zoning regime to promote density and multi-modal transportation options. It is time for the preservation movement to do the same. Instead of simply focusing on protection and fighting redevelopment, it is time to better incentivize adaptive re-use and to join with the environmental movement to develop a new impetus and set of tools for preservation. There is no political movement in the U.S. (and possibly worldwide) with a bigger upside than the green movement in its many forms, with its potential to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and combat global climate change.

Federal research from the last energy crisis indicates a third of the energy a building will use in its lifespan is embedded in the construction materials that make up the foundation, the walls, the roof, the windows and doors, etc. Even the greenest new development can't compete with the savings of leaving an existing building standing. Let us reconsider the landmarks ordinance and the way we go about preservation in the Chicago region in general, from something negative and oppositional to something positive and proactive.

This Sunday the Tribune had an interesting photo documentary of one farm that has now been turned into new sub-urban houses. The pictures are shown next to each other and compare similar, but different, scenes.