| Justin Fishbein is to be congratulated for his letter in the Nov. 27
News Sun pro-posing a summit on the issue of the growing intolerable traffic
congestion in Lake County.
As an advocate of the Route 53 extension, I suggest it is not time to put it on the back burner, as Fishbein suggests, but rather to consign it to history's dust bin. As he correctly points out, the Tollway Authority recently released a study which indicates a need to raise tolls simply to maintain and upgrade its current system, much less build any of the planned tollway extensions. Therefore, regardless of their merit -- or lack thereof -- the extensions are dead in light of the governor's strong opposition not only to any toll increases, but also to any tolls at all, if possible, and even to the continued existence of the Tollway Authority itself. So it is only common sense to immediately stop further planning for the Route 53 extension, and begin planning for life without it. Prudence dictates, however, that rather than dispose of the extensive right-of-way already acquired for this project -- as fervid extension opponents will undoubtedly demand -- the land in question should be conveyed to the Lake County Forest Preserve District for development of a series of linear open spaces. This would come with the caveat that at some point in the future -- a minimum of 25 years -- the land could be reacquired for transportation purposes if conditions then warranted. It would be a terrible shame if a future generation needing to develop a transportation facility -- perhaps of a mode undreamed of today -- had to recarve a right-of-way for it out of an even more highly developed Lake County. Presumably Fishbein understands that the summit he suggests, while a valuable and laudable first step, would be only the beginning of a planning process using citizen, community, business, and public official involvement and technical input to come up with a series of transportation improvements for Lake County. As sick of the seemingly endless studies as many in Lake County are, it will take this kind of |
thoughtful planning process -- with the 53 extension off the table
-- to make the difficult decisions necessary to address congestion in any
meaningful way.
Fishbein lists the usual alternatives to road construction: Staggered business hours, ride-sharing incentives and transit improvements. And he is correct. Each of these has an important role to play and needs to be pursued, particularly funda-mental changes in the Pace bus system to move toward demand-responsive door-to-door service. Development in almost all of Lake County is at densities too low and there-fore trips are much too dispersed, to sup-port conventional fixed-route, fixed-schedule bus transit service. While focusing on feeding the Metra commuter rail stations, Pace needs to jump into the future of using small vehicles and advanced computer dispatching and telecommunications technologies to provide door-to-door service which can provide lifeline mobility to those without ready access to a car, while providing a comfortable, convenient and secure alternative for some trips to those with one. Fishbein also cites the familiar litany of "new urbanism" and "smart growth" initiatives including central area redevelopment and higher-density zoning. Almost every government agency with zoning power in the county inevitably reacts to concerns about suburban sprawl by down-zoning -- reducing allowable development densities. Down-zoning is too often a fool's paradise, a vain attempt to escape the inevitable impacts of growth, particularly traffic, but also school overcrowding, higher taxes and proximity to "those people" by limiting development on a community-by-community basis. Of course, if down-zoning really worked to limit sprawl, we wouldn't have almost 30,000 commuters a day coming to work in northeastern Illinois from southeastern Wisconsin, as well as the sprawling development in western and northern Lake County, McHenry County and points west. In many cases, reducing permitted development densities not only eliminates any possibility that the community in |
question can ever be effectively served by public transit, but also
simply pushes development farther out and makes the resulting traffic congestion
and other impacts worse. So good luck on "new urbanism" in most of Lake
County.
We must also realize that even after all reasonable transit and system-management initiatives are taken, and even if "smart growth" efforts are successful beyond anyone's wildest dreams, congestion in Lake County will continue to worsen without construction of substantial additional road capacity. If, as seems to be the case, new highways cannot be built, then existing roads will invariably have to be expanded. The costs and associated impacts will be great. And there will be the usual chorus of naysayers singing the tired song of "induced traffic" or "if you don't build it, they won't come." To which I respond: Limiting road development to reduce people's use of cars is like limiting school construction to reduce the number of people who have kids. It won't work. Simply put, Lake County will need to rebuild intersections, construct new signals, install improved driver information systems and widen roads -- a lot of them -- to meet its traffic needs. Traffic congestion is the top priority is-sue in suburban Chicago, according to re-cent opinion polls. And it should be, given the millions of dollars and hours it costs every year. If we are unable to effectively address congestion -- we must recognize we will never solve the problem -- we are condemning ourselves and our children to a future of longer commutes, higher costs for transportation, diminished quality of life and quite possibly severely negative consequences for our regional economy in an increasingly competitive world marketplace. The longest journey begins with a single step. The time is now to take it. Waukegan resident Dave Schulz heads the Infrastructure Technology Institute at Northwestern University, Evanston, where he teaches civil engineering 12/17/1999 |
Copyright © 1999 Copley Press, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (Waukegan News Sun)