North Lake Shore Drive Redo Falls Short of Bus Priority Expectations

According to an article by Jessica Papanek: "the Illinois Department of Transportation and other officials have eliminated the possibility of making the reconstruction of North Lake Shore Drive less car-centric and more equitable by converting car lanes to transit-only corridors without widening the roadway."

Papanek's article is strongly critical of the decision, calling it "incredibly retrograde," "shortsighted," and a "major mistake," all in the first paragraph of the story.

The choice to eliminate an alternative for the project that included a bus lane in lanes currently devoted to automobile travel was revealed during an online meeting of the task forces for the North Lake Shore Drive reconstruction project.

"During the event (view the presentation here), IDOT announced that possible configurations for the rebuilt highway have been narrowed down to three options, none of which involve creating bus-only lanes within the roadway’s existing eight-lane footprint," according to Papanek.

The remaining alternatives do include a "Dedicated Transitway-Left" alternative, which would add another lane for buses, expanding the footprint of North lake Shore Drive at great (potentially prohibitive) expense. All the other plans involve some combination of buses mixing with car traffic without expanding the roadway, falling short of the bus priority sought by advocates like Papanek.