Forever Free and Clear

Transportation writer John Grenefield surveys cities across the nation that are creating safe, inviting places for exercise and transportation by removing the sight, sound, smell and danger of car traffic.

http://votewithyourfeetchicago.blogspot.com

The Chicago Children's Museum is still determined to plant a 100,000 square foot building in Grant Park, and Mayor Daley is still flexing his muscles to help.

The issue is likely to be decided by the Chicago City Council, so right now the people who can save our Lakefront are the 50 aldermen.

Take 3 easy steps to help save Grant Park:

MARK LAWTON | Staff Writer
Wicker Park Booster

Riding in the Tour de Depaving on Sunday, its easy to find one's self thinking of Don Quixote tilting his lance at windmills. The bicycle tour was organized by the Campaign for a Free and Clear Lakefront, a group composed mostly of bicycle activists whose stated goal is to remove Lake Shore Drive — first from Grant Park, then from the rest of the city.

Seattle leaders look for new ideas after viaduct vote
Non-Highway Option Shows Greatest Promise

DAVID AMMONS
March 15, 2007
The Associated Press

A day after Seattle voters trounced both options for replacing the quake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct, Gov. Chris Gregoire and Seattle leaders Wednesday announced a new two-year attempt to negotiate a compromise.

Lakeside walk minus traffic to be reality at Kankaria

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=211175

Ahmedabad, November 27: FIRST was the Sabarmati river front project. Now comes the Kankaria lake front development project, the foundation of which was laid by Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Monday evening. The idea here, however, doesn't appear to be malls and shops. The idea, according to Modi, is to make the lake and its periphery an ideal, must-visit destination for tourists.

So the Rs 28.50-crore project, to be complete in a year's time, includes development of its four-km long periphery. At present the road surrounding the lake is used for vehicular movement alone, leaving no space and little scope for visitors to enjoy the spot in a peaceful and pollution-free way.

Press Release
For Immediate Release

www.foreverfreeandclear.org

Burnham Bike Ride Back to the Future

What: Burnham’s Vision Ride, a Free 2-Hour Bike Ride to Explore a Carfree Future for Chicago’s Lakefront

When: Saturday, June 7, 2003, 1pm, meet at Daley Plaza, Washington and Dearborn

Who: 50 Chicago Cyclists and Others Concerned about the Misuse of Urban Public Space

The lakefront is Chicago’s crown jewel-- our mostly open and clear shoreline makes us unique among the cities of the Great Lakes and draws millions of tourists and locals each year seeking quiet enjoyment and recreation.

We can thank our forbearers for bequeathing the city an unencumbered shoreline. Such visionaries as the Canal Commission of 1836 who first proclaimed the shoreline shall remain “Forever open, clear and free” and Daniel Burnham, who in his 1909 Plan for Chicago stated, “ the slopes leading down to the water should be quiet stretches of green,” have played essential roles in preserving the lakefront as an open space.

Unfortunately, there also have been major violations of Chicago’s open lakefront-- most notably the construction of an 8-lane superhighway known as Lake Shore Drive.

On June 24, more than 50 cyclists will join Chicago's premier Daniel Burnham impersonator for Burnham’s Vision Ride, a leisurely tour along the lakefront in order to see the shoreline through Burnham's eyes and begin planning activities to create a Chicago lakefront free of the noise, pollution, and dangers associated with Lake Shore Drive.

The ride is sponsored by the Campaign for a Free and Clear Lakefront, a grass roots coalition working to remove Lake Shore Drive from Grant Park and eventually from the entire length of the Chicago shoreline.

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Activists want park over drive

by Mark Lawton, Staff writer, "Skyline". Thursday, June 15, 2000

A group of 50 Chicago bicycling activists have a modest proposal for the city: Tear up Lake Shore Drive.

The Campaign for a Free and Clear Lake-Front aims to first remove LSD from Grant Park so "people can enjoy the space without the noise, danger and pollution associated with having an eight-lane superhighway in the middle of a public park."

The longer-term vision is to remove LSD from the Lakeshore completely. And its supporters date the origin of their adopted vision to the templates of modern Chicago.

"We want to make good on the original vision for the Chicago lake-front as a forever open, clear and free space," said Michael Burton, secretary of the campaign.

That vision started in 1936 when the Canal Commission was trying to raise money for the I and M canal, which would link the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River. The commission was charged with selling parcels of land in Chicago to raise money for the canal. "As a stroke of vision on their first map they wrote that the lakefront shall remain forever open, free and clear space" said Burton, 35, "with the idea it would be for the enjoyment of all Chicagoans as an open space."

Over the years that vision has been largely honered, with such exceptions as McCormick Place, Meigs Field and "perhaps the most egregious intrusion is Lake Shore Drive, which is the placement of an eight lane superhighway in the middle of a park space was to remain ever open, free and clear," said Burton.

The portion of Lake Shore Drive (part of state highway 41) that runs through Grant Park was completed in 1933 as president Franklin Roosevelt gave a foreign-policy address in 1937 at the dedication of the bridge over the Chicago River.

"The people who planned Lake Shore Drive built it more as a recreation drive," Tim Samuelson, curator of architecture at the Chicago Historical Society in Old Town, told Skyline. "It was not intended to be more of a superhighway but one where you could take a drive and see the beauty-scape to the east and the city skyline of the west and enjoy the breezes. Now, many people have forgotten it as a recreation drive and think of it as a commuting drive.

Moving Lake Shore Drive is a concept that isn't without recent precedent. In 1996, a stretch was moved west of the Field Museum, allowing it to form a "museum campus" (completed in 1998) with the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. The cost was $90 million to move the roadway, plus another $25 million to construct the campus, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation.

The Campaign for a Free and Clear Lakefront is currently working on public relations and forming a coalition. Its logo reads "Chicago's Front Lawn/Depave Lake Shore Drive." Members plan to collect signatures for a petition to the City Council and are currently holding a competition for who can design a car free Grant Park. The winner will be announced at the Critical Mass Art Show in Feb 2001. (Critical Mass riders are known here for "corking" streets for en masse bicycle riders that sometimes dominate city streets to raise awareness of cyclists issues. Corking involves cyclists holding bicycles over their heads, which helps block intersections and allows approaching to see what is blocking the way.)

Events are planned, including a two-hour bicycle ride along the lakefront at noon Saturday, June 24, which leaves from Daley Plaza. [The "Burnham Vision Ride"] "We'll have Chicago's premier Daniel Burnham (turn of the century architect and city planner) impersonator, who will guide us through main challenges of the campaign as largely a matter of changing people's mindset. "People have been lulled into a sense of complacency," said Burton, who aims "to get people to see beyond their windshields," and see such negative consequences of driving cars as air pollution, congestion, dangers to pedestrians. A second goal is to develop infrastructure for alternative modes transit. Does Burton think this campaign has a chance to succeed?

"I do, I really do," said Burton. "Right now it may look like a daunting task, but this is an issue that resonates with people. Chicagoans really care about their lakefront. Once we can all coalesce around a vision, I would say Lake Shore Drive's days are numbered."

Craig Wolf, spokesman for city Transportation Department, sees differently.

"There is no compelling reason why we would want to pursue any altered roadway," said Wolfe. "We've taken a lot of measures to enhance the boulevard of Lake Shore Drive through Grant Park and Lincoln Park - with extensive landscaping and low speed limits. We think that balances the needs of the motoring public and park users.

"It's a vital roadway. It carries heavy traffic. It would put a lot of pressure on other streets."

"There will be some traffic diversion that goes west of the lakefront and some traffic abatement as well," says Burton, who suggests that there are better ways of carrying commuters including electric trolleys, bikeways and enhancing current public transport.

In the meantime, the campaign has its work cut out for it. The state recently concluded public hearings for $90 million in rebuilding of south Lake Shore Drive between McCormick Place and 67th street, scheduled to begin in 2002. 

 Chicago Sun-Times Letters January 26, 2001

"Take part in the planning of Chicago's front yard!" urges Chicago Park District promotional material for the Grant Park Framework Plan public forums. Although the forums are an important opportunity for the public to direct the future of the Chicago's lakefront centerpiece, it appears that the Park District is shying away from correcting Grant Park's largest design flaw.

Any serious plan to improve the park must confront the eight-lane superhighway that severs the park from the Lake Michigan shoreline. After all, who wants a freeway in their front yard?

A quixotic grassroots group pushes for the unpaving of Lake Shore Drive

by Lydialyle Gibson, Chicago Journal, March 15, 2001

Early last spring, it seemed like a crazy, quixotic idea, even to the fervent bicycle activists who dreamed it up. But the more they thought about it and talked about it and told their friends, even dabbled in a little research, the more the idea began to take on feasibility, weight, hope.

As cyclist Gareth Newfield said, "Why should it be normal to have an eight-lane highway through a park? Why should cars be in the park at all?"

by Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, June 25, 2001

Daniel Burnham and I made a little plan: He and his friend Aaron
Montgomery Ward would meet me on the east side of Buckingham Fountain and we'd ride our bikes a mile south to Soldier Field.

As the dispute rages over whether the proposed redesign of the stadium
will be a monstrosity or a civic improvement, I decided to go to the
source--the two most significant visionaries in the history of Chicago's
beautiful front yard.

Around the turn of the 20th Century, Ward almost single-handedly led the successful fight to clean up and block construction projects in what is now Grant Park. Shortly thereafter, the eloquent architect Burnham,