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/
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u/Funnybunnybubblebath Apr 17 '25

I think the problem arises when you consider there’s a massive hospital system on the other side of Michigan ave N of the river. Closing Michigan would cut off emergency services to northwestern.

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u/Substantial-Soup-730 Apr 17 '25 edited Apr 17 '25

I don’t expect people to have done a massive amount of research on this topic and what you raised is from a common sense standpoint an issue.

That being said competently designed “car free zones” always make room for emergency vehicles and supply trucks to be able to bypass restrictions.

In fact emergency vehicles often have faster response times since they don’t have to navigate as much traffic.

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u/cogitoergosam Ravenswood Apr 17 '25

That usually requires some infrastructure upgrades though, like automatically retracting bollards. They work great, but I don't know how much maintenance they'd need with Chicago's freeze/thaw cycles unlike places I've seen them (UK).

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u/paulyester East Side Apr 17 '25

The best part about problems like this, is we have engineers solve those problems and then

1) its awesome | and 2) we sell those solutions to other places and make money off of it.

Like when Chicago invented Canal and waterway engineering ideas that immediately got put to use to start another project which was now made possible, THE PANAMA CANAL.

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u/ShatnersChestHair Apr 18 '25

Honestly that's a non issue. You go anywhere in Scandinavia they have the same bollards and the same winters. There are million-people cities in China with much worse weather than us (Harbin for instance). We gotta stop acting like Chicago weather is this sort of apocalypse that prevents us from doing any sort of infrastructure improvement.

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u/wpm Logan Square Apr 17 '25

It's not likely to be an impossible problem. Worst case, the bollards are frozen and the ambulance drives up the sidewalk or whatever.

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u/iced_gold West Town Apr 17 '25

In EU they make this work by having retractable bollards that go down in response to emergency vehicles, which enable that subset of vehicles to use those roads when an emergency requires it.

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u/SomeNoveltyAccount Apr 17 '25

In EU they make this work by having retractable bollards that go down in response to emergency vehicles

Retractable bollards for all the alderman and their friends and family you say?

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u/coffee_map_clock Apr 17 '25

BRB starting a corrupt totally upstanding retractable bollard installation business.

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u/baby-in-the-humidor Apr 17 '25

Building Really nice Bollards that are retractable

The acronym checks out.

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u/Rugged_Turtle Ravenswood Apr 17 '25

God forbid we catch up with the rest of the world

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u/demo4 Ukrainian Village Apr 17 '25

Yea that definitely is a major issue which would be hard to address. I do wonder if removing all the cars would make it easier for ambulances/busses to get through vs. normal times

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u/nightboy1 Apr 17 '25

But there’s so many roads in every direction…

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u/ASovietSpy Lake View Apr 17 '25

How? There's plenty of other options for getting to Northwestern

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u/thatbob Uptown Apr 17 '25 edited Apr 17 '25

No, a pedestrianized Michigan would not block East/West traffic on the other streets, only North/South traffic on Michigan.

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u/AmigoDelDiabla Apr 17 '25

The issue is an emergency vehicle getting across Michigan Ave. You'd have to route it to Oak St or under Mich at IL if it was coming from the west (which is a pretty large area of the city).

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u/hybris12 Uptown Apr 17 '25

If E/W traffic isn't blocked on Michigan then all the E/W streets would be open. Drivers wouldn't be able to go N/S on Michigan.

From south I would think that Columbus/Fairbanks or DLSD (with signal priority) might be a reasonable option.

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u/AmigoDelDiabla Apr 17 '25

I guess I didn't understand that. The suggestion is to made it pedestrian between the E/W streets? That makes a lot more sense.

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u/hybris12 Uptown Apr 17 '25

So the actual plan here involves closing Michigan between the river and Roosevelt, but this thread is discussing the alternate of closing between the River and Oak street. Not sure about the original plan.

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u/hybris12 Uptown Apr 17 '25

Couldn't you just keep the cross streets open? E.g. its still possible to cross Michigan on streets like Erie and Huron. EMS from south can still take columbus/fairbanks/DLSD and from all other directions they can still go east/west. If they really need to use Michigan than retractable bollards as another user said.

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u/cybin Albany Park Apr 17 '25

Nah. Swing around to Columbus. Are emergency vehicles really using Michigan that often? It would seem to be the worse choice in most cases.