I visited Big Marsh Bike Park with a friend three weekends ago to ride mountain bikes on the single track, check out the park’s campsite, see if people were still drag racing on Stony Island Avenue (they were), and finally, try to get a sense of where the access trail from Pullman in the west will cross over Lake Calumet by viewing the “land bridge” from the air.
According to the “preferred alignment” map below, the future bike trail will cross the lake at the shortest opening where the spit is on the left. The photo is facing due west.
While researching the proposed multi-use trail, boardwalk, and bridge, I decided to look up historic aerial photos to try and understand when and where the land around the lake was filled in. (I think the Illinois International Port District is the proposer.)
Renderings and map by Epstein.
The Lake Calumet diptych I made shows two aerial photos – taken from airplanes – of Lake Calumet in 1970 and 1995. The images come from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s collection of three decades of 6,300 aerial photos across the six country region.
In the 1995 image you can see the Harborside International Golf Center built on landfill (also in 1995), additional slips for ships, and other land and water feature additions and subtractions.
The two photographs were taken slightly offset from each other but I scaled and adjusted their alignments to match each other as best as I could.
Strijp-S is a new neighborhood in Eindhoven, just a few minutes bicycle ride from the main station and the pedestrian shopping street. It was formerly the home of a Philips factory – you know, the Dutch electronics company that makes hospital equipment, light bulbs, and shavers.
The factory as seen in 1979. I believe most of the buildings are still there and the Vertical Forest was built one a former surface parking lot or in place of the single-story buildings. Credit: Hans Aarts, Wikipedia
The building in the top photo is called “Trudo Vertical Forest”, a social housing development. Each one of the 125 apartments has a tree on the balcony and approximately 40 shrubs and plants next to the tree. I knew none of this when I visited in May 2023 with Mark W (@BicycleDutch).
Redevelopment of Philips factory site in Eindhoven
Enjoy additional photos from Eindhoven, well-known amongst urbanists for the Hovenring bicycle bridge over a highway junction, on my Flickr.
Kudos to the developer and architects for finding a site and designing a beautiful building in downtown Brooklyn that can be seen from nearly everywhere. I have dozens of photos of The Brooklyn Tower, designed by SHoP Architects, from the north, east, south, and west.
Brooklyn Tower as seen through the Williamsburg BridgeThe Brooklyn Tower seen from Governors IslandThe Brooklyn Tower as seen from Fort Greene ParkBrooklyn Tower
Two months ago, a bunch of us in Chicago hosted a fundraiser here for John Bauters, America’s bike mayor, who’s in a runoff for an Alameda County Supervisor seat in California. Cohosts were Michelle Stenzel, Steven Vance, Nate Hutcheson, Molly Fleck, LeAaron Foley, Tim Shambrook, and Ben Wolfenstein.
The ride started at the Western Avenue Brown Line station, where Steven Vance talked about some of the infrastructure improvements coming to the station plaza as well as the new multifamily construction happening across the street (at 4715 N Western Ave) and future proactive upzoning.
Photos by Eric Allix Rogers
The group of 40 safe streets advocates cycled east on Leland Avenue, site of a future neighborhood greenway, to Lily’s Corner, where her father Tim spoke about the vehicle crash that killed his daughter, Lily.
Next, we pedaled to where Montrose Avenue meets DuSable Lake Shore Drive and Michael McLean shared updates on the plan from the Illinois and Chicago Departments of Transportation to “modernize” DLSD by—of course—widening the highway. And they didn’t even include a bus-only lane.
Finally, we gathered in the lawn near the Montrose Beach to listen to John give advocates the winning formula for safe streets infrastructure, followed by some open discussion about deploying those lessons in Chicago. I collected some responses from the other cohosts:
Tim Shambrook: I would say that the big takeaway from the ride was how he frames these issues, it is important to meet the naysayers where they are. Speak to the objections, sympathize, then come back with a conversation centered on safety.
Molly Fleck: I learned a lot about from John about message discipline in activism, how to engage with your opponents in a productive way, and how to effectively build and use power for good.
Michelle Stenzel: John shared useful advice about framing support for street design changes in terms of improving safety.
Ben Wolfenstein: John is known as America’s Bike Mayor, but he insisted that he’s more of a “Safety Mayor”. He doesn’t campaign on bikes, he campaigns on safety and that makes him hard to beat and garners support for his infrastructure projects.
The event raised $2,700 for John’s campaign and 35 people donated. You can still donate here before watching John’s new campaign commercial below.
Update October 23, 2024: I’m aware of one project that has been withdrawn in part due to complications complying with resident-requested changes that would have been lessened if the applicant did not have to also apply for a Type 1 zoning map amendment in order to take advantage of the Connected Communities ordinance’s density bonuses and the “ZBA bundling” streamlining that was adopted by City Council last fall. The applicant was requesting to rezone from the B2-3 to B3-3 (the new zoning district). If the new zoning district already existed and some of the changes I mention in the comment below were in place, then the applicant would have likely already applied for a permit.
This is the original version of a public comment I planned to give to the Chicago City Council zoning committee on Tuesday, September 17, 2024. Due to an overwhelming number of commenters the amount of time allotted to each speaker was reduced from three minutes to two minutes. I edited and cut the comment on the fly.
Video recording of my comment to zoning committee.
Hello, my name is Steven Vance, I’m a South Loop renter and a member of Urban Environmentalists Illinois.
The ordinances to proactively upzone Western Avenue from Howard Street to Addison Street will be voted on today in this committee. The ordinances will rezone nearly all of the 4.5 mile stretch to B3-3 zoning, allowing multifamily housing to be built as of right without further approvals from the local alderperson or this committee. I fully support this plan.
However, there is a technical flaw in this plan that could hinder the initiative’s goal of adding more housing, both market rate and subsidized affordable.
To take advantage of the Connected Communities bonuses that allow even more or larger homes to be built when a property is both in a B3-3 zoning district and a transit-served location, the property owner must still obtain a Type 1 zoning map amendment. To sail smoothly, such amendments need support from the local alderperson, most of whom require community meetings before deciding to offer such support. Thus, in some circumstances, the proactive upzoning may not have one of its intended effects of cutting the tape for building new housing.
The greatest Connected Communities ordinance bonuses, that allow for the most additional housing and family-sized homes, only kick in when 100% of the proposal’s ARO requirement is built on-site. I’m concerned that that requirement combined with the need to get a Type 1 zoning map amendment might limit the number of additional homes added as a result of the upzonings. A solution would be to amend the Connected Communities ordinance to allow the bonuses to be granted by right as long as the other, existing standards about on-site ARO units are met.
I would like City Council members to implement more proactive upzoning initiatives across Chicago, including on arterials like Western Avenue, Milwaukee Avenue, and Broadway, as well as on less busy streets like 35th Street in McKinley Park and designated Pedestrian Streets. Yet to fully and cost-effectively realize the benefits of housing abundance from this policy lever, further tweaks are needed so housing providers can get to construction sooner.
The proactive upzoning of Western Avenue, as well as Milwaukee Avenue, reflects real leadership on the part of the alderpersons. It will result in more and better housing for Chicagoans, more affordable units for residents who need them most, and more tax revenue for the city. I’m hopeful that with some tweaks to the density bonuses outlined here, we can establish a model for a more affordable, welcoming and prosperous city.
A new multi-family apartment building under construction on Western Avenue.
