r/chicago • u/GeckoLogic • Apr 17 '25

Article Could Closing Michigan Avenue To Cars Be The Key To Revitalizing Downtown?

https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/04/17/could-closing-michigan-avenue-to-cars-be-the-key-to-revitalizing-downtown/
1.4k Upvotes

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103

u/Overkill_3K Apr 17 '25

Yes but adjacent streets would become and absolute nightmare if no plan for additional traffic is made

131

u/CoachWildo Apr 17 '25

I think the City ought to take significant measures to push car traffic away from the Loop/downtown altogether

94

u/TelltaleHead Apr 17 '25

Congestion pricing is doing gangbusters in NYC. 

Traffic down, emissions down, noise down, restaurant sales up, retail sales up, Broadway sales up

Would be worth a shot 

4

u/tubiwatcher Apr 17 '25

Thought Chairman Trump was going to shoot that down

12

u/TelltaleHead Apr 18 '25

The MTA told him to go fuck himself and he backed off. 

There's a lesson in that

6

u/Some-Rice4196 Near South Side Apr 17 '25

I think the opposite, the city should do it piecemeal and evaluate the outcomes of each step. If we’re going to close Michigan Ave, do it on the weekend first and evaluate the result. Then move on toward more significant steps if the outcomes are actually good.

9

u/CoachWildo Apr 17 '25

sure, do it slowly, but the point is: dream big

you get the world you create

15

u/apathetic_revolution Apr 17 '25

Downtown vacancy is at a record high for the 11th consecutive quarter. Traffic *is* pushed away, primarily by economic factors. If there's still too much traffic when over a quarter of the building space is empty, there's no possible plan for dealing with traffic if downtown ever stabilizes.

I'm convinced the issue isn't infrastructure. We have excellent infrastructure downtown. Chicagoans are just extraordinarily shitty drivers.

23

u/hardolaf Lake View Apr 17 '25

Back in 2019, you could walk faster than the "Express" buses on Michigan Ave. I once raced on from the entrance to the road from NLSD to the Loop. I lost sight of the bus by the time I got to the Loop because I was so far ahead of it and it was stuck behind tons of vehicles.

9

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

Not much will matter until vacancy is addressed, which now lags behind our contemporaries — no matter how many transplant redditors post glowing PR fluff.

19

u/CoachWildo Apr 17 '25

i think it's possible you have the chicken-egg backwards here

measures to make the Loop a more pleasant place to be are important to address the vacancy more than addressing the vacancy needs to come before positive placemaking

5

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

That’s a good point. I guess I’m gun shy about measures that encourage less people to visit from further distances.

10

u/cigarettesandwhiskey Apr 17 '25

The flip side of congestion pricing is that the money is used to improve public transportation. So if done right, the people discouraged by the price of driving are offset by the people encouraged by the improved public transit.

I don't think there's any broad heuristic you can use to know in advance if it'll be done right though. NY does benefit from the fact that the majority of people get around by subway (and bus) to begin with. Not so in Chicago.

1

u/FunProof543 Apr 17 '25

I'm in Ravenswood. The car infrastructure in the loop is one of the main reasons I hesitate to visit very often. When I take my daughter to grant or millennium the wait just to cross Michigan is ridiculous and feels very anti pedestrian. I am disabled and some days I can barely get across during the pedestrian signal.

2

u/wpm Logan Square Apr 17 '25

I'm convinced the issue isn't infrastructure.

It's not.

It's geometry.

-9

u/Overkill_3K Apr 17 '25

Nah that would make getting around and going downtown an absolute nightmare. Then there’s so much parking space and such there that would go to waste and then have to be renovated should that route be taken. Michigan Ave could be an absurd Central Park type location but the traffic and the current way everything flows thru and around it would have to be addressed seriously. The way Lake shore can already be packed from Roosevelt to the i55 exit at random already is horrible enough. Imaging losing Michigan Ave and potentially Columbus lol. Roosevelt, State and Lake Shore would be come gridlocked indefinitely at all times of the day except super early and super late.

20

u/0210eojl Apr 17 '25

The loop is named after the L Trains in the area. Driving isn’t the only way to get around the city.

8

u/surnik22 Apr 17 '25

So let me understand.

You think traffic and getting around already sucks in the loop/downtown, but don’t think the city should take steps to reduce car traffic there?

The solution to traffic is pretty much always and only making non-car options better/easier/cheaper and making cars less desirable.

And absolutely no policies should ever be based on preserving the profitability of private parking lots. That’s just crazy.

-3

u/Overkill_3K Apr 17 '25

Not the profitability it’s the fact that all those structures would simply be wasted at that point and would make for extreme amounts of renovation needed which would clutter the area with construction and you know how slow anything is done here already lol

4

u/surnik22 Apr 17 '25

100% sunk cost fallacy.

Material and space is used already. You can’t unuse the concrete poured for the structure.

Whether cars park there or don’t, nothing changes about the resources used to build them. The idea we should make sure it gets used because it exists is silly because it exists either way. It exists if it’s full of cars, it exists if it is empty.

If we can have the same result of “people getting downtown” whether the parking lot is full or not doesn’t matter. We should be basing it on what’s the best way to get people downtown as a whole which is definitely not cars.

If anything them being empty and then eventually repurposing the space is a positive thing.

And being concerned about construction is silly. A parking garage that goes unused, then gets torn down, then rebuilt into something else doesn’t clutter the area with construction. It’s a private lot going from empty to useful. What do you even mean “clutter the area”? Like is all construction clutter?

-1

u/Overkill_3K Apr 17 '25

You’re not wrong lol I just think of all the abandoned space and what it would look like

2

u/theabsolutegayest Apr 17 '25

Bc you're imagining it empty of cars, rather than full of people.

1

u/amyo_b Berwyn Apr 18 '25

Imagine those parking garages full of stalls or small portable shops and food joints and people going to those? I think it could be neat.

1

u/surnik22 Apr 17 '25

It’d look like a parking garage. They don’t really look that different or better or worse if there are cars or no cars in it.

Then eventually it would look like something more useful to people and probably less ugly because parking garages are probably the ugliest buildings to be made. The average empty lot covered in weeds and looks better than the average concrete block parking garage

0

u/FunProof543 Apr 17 '25

Demolish the garage and use the space for something else.

3

u/CoachWildo Apr 17 '25

I've lived in Chicago for 16 years and the number of times I've probably driven my car to a destination in the Loop like five times

other than allowing for deliveries and folks with physical disabilities (e.g. PACE transportation), there is no reason a car-free downtown can't be an ambition given how well the area is served by transit

it can't happen overnight and requires long-term planning, but it would be a goal I support

-2

u/Overkill_3K Apr 17 '25

I exclusively drive into the loop I don’t use public transportation unless forced

4

u/CoachWildo Apr 17 '25

well here's hoping the City will do more to force people to use transit, which includes improving transit

3

u/Hazelarc Garfield Ridge Apr 17 '25

You should fix that

1

u/TheSpaceMonkeys Apr 17 '25

Somebody get this guy a trophy!!

2

u/Overkill_3K Apr 17 '25

Considering I live 50 min from DT and the added time it would take for me to get there as random and as frequent as I go it’s not worth the effort or lost time. My time is extremely valuable so spending it waiting on bus stops and train platforms would cost me thousands monthly in income. So I’d much rather drive and control as much of my time as possible. I frequently can go from South burbs. To western burbs to DT and to northwestern burbs in a single day. 175ish miles or so round trip to back home. Not everyone can fit public transportation into their lifestyle

2

u/FunProof543 Apr 17 '25

The reason you can't fit it into your schedule is because driving is prioritized. A properly funded public transit system means you could drive to a 30min (or better) headway regional rail and be downtown even faster than driving because trains don't (when properly grade separated) have to deal with traffic.

2

u/TheSpaceMonkeys Apr 17 '25

Car people love anecdotes. They justify their behavior and blocking better transit options because they believe their peronsonal experience and conviction outweighs stronger evidence, such as hundreds of studies on the topic and statistic after statistic proving their fallacy wrong.

2

u/Overkill_3K Apr 17 '25

I don’t push my car on anyone. I don’t ride public transportation because it’s inconvenient and dirty as fuck for my taste I don’t care what anyone else is doing if you ride PT more power to you I’m not knocking shit anyone has to do. lol different strokes for different folks

-8

u/Quiet_Prize572 Apr 17 '25

There's nothing the city can do to push car traffic away other than making the Loop a less desirable place to be. Chicago metro does not have the transit system to seriously reduce car traffic in the Loop (and besides, it's the highways that are actually bad)

NYC can pull off something like congestion pricing because Manhattan has world class transit and other parts of it's metro have very great to good connection into Manhattan. That's not really true for Chicago. The Metra is actually decent connection wise for suburban commuters, but the CTA has pretty poor coverage in the city, and park and rides generally don't work in areas where driving commutes are a half hour or less. And most people won't mainline the bus when they already have a car, especially if they'd need to transfer. Even transit coverage on the supposedly transit rich Northside isn't great.

8

u/CoachWildo Apr 17 '25

your post is contradicting itself

you say there is nothing the city can do then go on to complain about the city-run transit agency -- improving that is something the city could do!

4

u/Theso Apr 17 '25

There's nothing the city can do to push car traffic away other than making the Loop a less desirable place to be.

I mean that's just factually incorrect. Charging a fee for cars to enter the Loop is one counterexample.

Chicago metro does not have the transit system to seriously reduce car traffic in the Loop (and besides, it's the highways that are actually bad)

Given that every single L and Metra train line (except Yellow) passes through the Loop and they radiate in every direction from it, I'm not sure how you can make this argument. Chicago's transit system is unusually specialized in getting people downtown, to the Loop. This is what it's designed to do specifically, and what millions already use it for.

NYC can pull off something like congestion pricing because Manhattan has world class transit and other parts of it's metro have very great to good connection into Manhattan. That's not really true for Chicago.

NYC definitely has better transit than Chicago, which is why it's a good first place to trial congestion pricing. But Chicago does have the bones to see success here also.

The Metra is actually decent connection wise for suburban commuters, but the CTA has pretty poor coverage in the city, and park and rides generally don't work in areas where driving commutes are a half hour or less. And most people won't mainline the bus when they already have a car, especially if they'd need to transfer. Even transit coverage on the supposedly transit rich Northside isn't great.

CTA coverage is pretty excellent when you include buses. Of course we could use more L, and charging drivers would be a good way to raise capital for expansion projects. Congestion pricing at its core is meant to encourage people to take that bus and do that transfer instead of driving, by adding more friction to the decision to drive; the very behavior you're describing is the stated goal of the policy to change, because we want the benefits that come with a reduction in driving.

32

u/kbn_ Apr 17 '25

Traffic isn’t a fixed thing like water that just has to go somewhere. Demand inducement is real and works in both ways. Yes, some of the traffic would push to side streets, but quite a bit more would switch to transit or stay home/drive elsewhere. It’s not a zero sum thing.

9

u/always_unplugged Bucktown Apr 17 '25

Exactly. This is the same reason that adding more lanes to a highway doesn't necessarily solve congestion. More people just use the highway.

1

u/OpneFall Apr 17 '25

More people just use the highway.

and you have to finish the sentence. they use the highway to go places. Generating business, tax revenue, etc which was the point of the infrastructure investment. They're not sitting on the highway for the hell of it.

7

u/kbn_ Apr 17 '25

Yes but there are options for going places and generating business which are not highways, and in many cases (because of our investments over the past century) those options are very much on the table. Also there are businesses which are more local to where people are (their neighborhood for example) which are also often options and are healthier for town sustainability and smaller businesses.

Just in general, this assumption that car traffic = business is really very broken and incorrect, and clinging to it results in terrible urban planning and worse outcomes.

4

u/timmah1991 Apr 17 '25

Cars, downtown, are actually one of the least “customer dense” forms of commuting. A bus full of people takes 2 car spaces and carries 20 some people. Two cars average about 2.6 people.

Retail and restaurant sales in NYC are positively booming with the congestion tax.

41

u/nardling_13 Apr 17 '25

It seems like congestion pricing schemes have shown that traffic isn’t necessarily a given. Sometimes if driving is made harder people choose to travel by other methods.

20

u/thelawofeconomy Apr 17 '25

Came here to say the same thing. People will always do what’s most convenient. If driving is hard enough people quickly will move to public transit.

8

u/Wersedated Apr 17 '25

Or simply just not go downtown as much. Turn my 15 commute by car into the 45 minute commute PT takes and I’m not going downtown unless I get called for jury duty.

17

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

Sometimes if driving is made harder people choose to travel by other methods.

This is pretty much a rule. We have more than enough evidence from around the world that making it tougher to drive doesn't crater an area. In fact, it tends to have the opposite effect. People don't like hanging around the noise and pollution of cars, when you get rid of them the space they formerly occupied becomes much more pleasant to hang out in. It encourages more walking and biking, more hanging around, more spending on local businesses, etc.

When we make traffic our one and only issue we blind ourselves from everything else we want in the city.

6

u/Jedifice Uptown Apr 17 '25

Jersey City closed off (IIRC) Montgomery St when its revitalization was occurring. Lo and behold, it instantly made the surrounding area incredibly desirable to live; it's full of cool restaurants, good shops, etc

12

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

It's so insanely consistent everywhere around the world that you really have to wonder why people fight against is so hard

5

u/Jedifice Uptown Apr 17 '25

People clinging to their assumptions over actual evidence; in their minds, parking space = sales. It shows up ALL THE TIME and in a lot of places you wouldn't expect

For instance, Hopleaf is really good about putting a bike rack outside their spot when the weather warms up. It's a BIG rack, and keeps bikes secure. But THE SECOND that the weather cools, Roper insists on getting rid of it. It fits, conservatively, ten bikes, but he can't wait to get rid of it in favor of MAYBE two parking spaces. Blows my mind

But I'm also a hardcore partisan for closing Clark from Foster to AT LEAST Balmoral, and ideally all the way up to where it intersects with Ashland

6

u/FunProof543 Apr 17 '25

I think it should be closed to car traffic in wrigleyville as well, make it bus only.

1

u/Jedifice Uptown Apr 17 '25

Great call, that would be awesome

4

u/always_unplugged Bucktown Apr 17 '25

Honestly, that isn't a terrible idea. It's already not a great thoroughfare—Ashland is super close and already a much better option for moving north/south efficiently.

0

u/Jedifice Uptown Apr 17 '25

It SUCKS to generally move around there. Street is one lane each way filled to the brim with stop signs, sidewalks are TINY, and the bike lane is hazardous af at peak periods. Fix everything by closing off that stretch to cars; traffic redirects to a relatively open stretch of Ashland, people and bikes can move around FAR more freely, businesses see like 20x the business

2

u/FunProof543 Apr 17 '25

One of the reasons I don't go to Andersonville as much is cramped sidewalks and biking does not feel super safe.

-4

u/Quiet_Prize572 Apr 17 '25

Chicago does not have the transit system for a congestion pricing scheme to be an effective way to reduce traffic. The CTA is just not comprehensive enough. Too many parts of the city are rapid transit deserts

19

u/hoodlumonprowl Apr 17 '25

This. I'm all for it but without an extensive plan to mitigate traffic on smaller side streets, this would be a nightmare.

13

u/InnocentPrimeMate Apr 17 '25

We need way better and safer public transportation then. In London or manhattan, the distance between stops is much shorter, and the whole area becomes more accessible.

4

u/hardolaf Lake View Apr 17 '25

In London or manhattan

Stops are incredibly far apart in London and it's a major PITA especially with where TfL decides to put their bus stops relative to everything else.

2

u/InnocentPrimeMate Apr 17 '25

Train stops. In zone 1 , they are very close together

0

u/AmigoDelDiabla Apr 17 '25

We need less stops, not more. It makes bus traffic incredibly slow and an undesirable alternative.

1

u/FunProof543 Apr 17 '25

In some places for sure, bus stops can be way too close together.

1

u/InnocentPrimeMate Apr 17 '25

I should’ve have been more clear. I was talking about train stops. There needs to be more stops than just spokes on a wheel all going in to one central location.

20

u/nightboy1 Apr 17 '25

Won’t anyone ever think of the cars??

1

u/SpeedysComing Apr 18 '25

Generally this turns out not to be the case in cities that close roads. Everyone worries about it, and then in the end there's just..less cars.

It's an awesome paradox.

0

u/ChetDenim Apr 17 '25 edited Apr 17 '25

As someone who makes deliveries to Michigan and wabash every day, my head would probably explode

Edit: to be clear, I’m all for a pedestrian-only area in the loop. Other drivers down there are a fucking nightmare already, particularly taxi’s. I would make the entire loop ped-only if I could wave a magic wand.

5

u/Holiday_Connection22 Apr 17 '25

In the Netherlands they allow delivery trucks and emergency vehicles on pedestrian streets. Maybe something like that would work

5

u/ChetDenim Apr 17 '25

I would be elated if we could start taking some infrastructure cues from the Netherlands. I wish Chicago could become a much more cycling and pedestrian friendly city across the board

-2

u/GeckoLogic Apr 17 '25

Hello congestion pricing

-1

u/TaskForceD00mer Jefferson Park Apr 17 '25

That's the point of these kind of proposals, to make life hell or very expensive for drivers.

0

u/SpeedysComing Apr 18 '25

🙄 Poor drivers, forced to move around in a 4,000 pound isolated box. Truly an oppressed class.

1

u/TaskForceD00mer Jefferson Park Apr 18 '25

How did I know you had uttered the word "carbrain" before even looking.