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Synopsis

Chicago city has historically been known in part as the “City of Broad Shoulders,” symbolizing a hard-work ethic and formidable industrialization. The city has also been known as the “Second City,” signifying reconstruction after the 1871 catastrophic fire and ranking behind New York City in size. Similarly, this vision for Chicago city is “Second City Redux” denoting major reconfiguration of physical form and reestablishment as the second largest municipality in the country. Further, the concept returns Chicago city to regional dominance by facilitating agglomeration economies through conventional urbanism.

 

Second City Redux revamps metropolitan regional growth and development patterns mainly through land use and transportation infrastructure. Implementation of the vision is necessary as historical policy choices of accommodating market-driven auto-oriented physical form has led to considerable losses in equity, net welfare or overall well-being in the Chicago region that continue today. The vision consists of regional land use decision authority, robust/transparent social benefit-cost analysis, incentives directing population and employment to Chicago city, downsizing inner urban expressways and arterials, escalating public transportation usage, and road usage charges.

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Vision Details

History

 

For decades, the Chicago region has been transferring the built environment from Chicago city to suburbia and overinvesting in roadway infrastructure. The result has been floundering public transportation, excessive inner city crime, stress to household budgets, environmental degradation, and unnecessary government debt. Proposed and/or implemented solutions included better transit-supportive land uses, electric vehicle transitioning, travel demand management, duplicative rapid transit lines, and expansion/preservation of expressways and arterials. Limited success dictates a dire need for major changes in land use and transportation strategies.

 

A 1939 Comprehensive Superhighway Plan for the City of Chicago documents $400 million ($9.3 billion 2020 $) in city street improvements over the previous 25 years resulting in “intolerable congestion” while “widened surface streets showed the worst accident records.” The plan called for a grade-separated expressway network due to projected area revitalization, travel time savings, and reductions in accidents while portending that “traffic congestion will be eliminated throughout the entire urban area.” The plan conceded that induced travel would result.

 

During the 1950’s, the State of Illinois created the Northeastern Illinois Regional Planning Commission (NIPC) and the Chicago Area Transportation Study (CATS) to coordinate growth and development. The NIPC/CATS 1968 comprehensive plan and subsequent efforts emphasized development along rail lines with connecting bus networks to maximize infrastructure efficiencies and protect the environment. Implementation was minimal as the plans were not binding. The de facto choice has mainly been continuing low density auto-oriented land uses and less consideration given to regional impacts.

 

Since 1950, results have been a reduction in Chicago city population and developed land of about 25% and more than a 200% increase in the urbanized area (UA) to accommodate population growth of 75%. Chicago city now comprises one-third of regional population and employment, a drop from two-thirds in 1950. The proportion of manufacturing jobs in Chicago city dropped from 75% in 1958 to 17% today; an example of the inequitable jobs-housing imbalance. Traffic congestion has consistently ranked near the top internationally.

 

Regional per capita vehicle miles traveled has more than tripled since 1960 and the proportion of household expenditures dedicated to transportation have more than doubled since 1935. CTA trips were about 1.15 billion in 1948 and 309 million in 2024, a 73% drop. The percentage of workers in the seven-county region using public transportation dropped from 32% in 1960 to 10% in 2024. Continued trends through 2060 would urbanize another 50% in land for a population increase of less than 25%.

 

A recent study in the Journal of the American Planning Association and the book Overbuilt found that the nation’s major urban arterials and expressways are excessive. Substantive net social benefits or overall economic welfare gains could be realized from reductions in road capacities due to the higher benefits of more productive land uses. Further, new urban highway capacity equates to social costs exceeding social benefits by at least a factor of four.

 

A published 2021 retrospective analysis of the Chicago city expressway system  compared welfare gains against a hypothetical alternative excluding construction. The modeled scenario included travel pricing to account for social costs of personal vehicle travel (e.g., accidents, congestion, pollution, etc.) and more compact development. The alternative would have provided net social benefit gains by a factor of three and up to $3 billion (2020 $) annually, exclusive of lower crime rates that would have resulted. City expressway system time savings were not worth the costs; crash reductions were suboptimal; and public transit efficiencies were lost.

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Vision

The Second City Redux vision transitions the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) from an advisory to an authoritative regional land use entity. CMAP in coordination with local authorities would be required to conduct social benefit-cost analyses for such decisions in addition to transportation project selection. This is as opposed to cost-effectiveness and economic impact analyses which focus on enumerating certain benefits and not on whether a project is socially worthwhile. As a result, the regional comprehensive plan would direct all new population and employment into Chicago city to expand upon existing efficiencies of urbanism, namely reduced travel and its externalities.

 

Regional Growth Management

Under Second City Redux, the Chicago IL-IN UA[1] would stop expanding. The existing UA limits would serve as a de facto growth boundary. The UA would not be extended until population and employment objectives of one-half regional totals have been met for Chicago city. Proximity gains would have profound impacts on equity. CMAP’s ON TO 2050 population increase projection of 2 million for northeast Illinois would be redirected to Chicago city. As a result, Chicago city’s population would increase from 2.8 to 4.8 million, increasing its share from 32% to 45% in northeast Illinois by 2050 (see Figure 1).

 

Elimination of Chicago City Expressways

The Second City Redux vision also reverses the perpetual trajectory of building, retaining, and expanding expressways in Chicago city. CMAP would establish a new long-range transportation plan (LRTP) of dismantling all such thoroughfares, including the Jane Byrne Interchange, upon expiration of their useful lives (see Figure 1). The vast amount of land vacated would be transitioned to street grids and commercial/residential growth/development in traditional urban form. New surface streets would be configured to prioritize commercial traffic. Select arterials would be downsized.

 

Quality Public Transportation Expansion

CTA rapid rail currently in the medians of expressways would be converted to four-track subways to accommodate increases in ridership from more compact development patterns. The vast majority of travelers entering Chicago city by personal vehicles would park at the perimeter and continue their journeys by CTA subways. Nonmotorized pathways would be within open air mini and shallow landscaped troughs on top of subways with portals under perpendicular city streets for unimpeded travel.

 

Regional Road Mileage Fees

CMAP’s plans for a per-mile road usage charge (RUC) would be implemented to assist in funding all related infrastructure for Second City Redux. Options consist of tracking vehicle mileage at Illinois emissions testing stations, transponders within vehicles, and dynamic pricing to account for congestion costs. Vehicles traversing the UA boundaries from outside the region could be charged via cordon-based devices at entry points.

 

Implementation

Second City Redux would be executed entirely through existing and modified processes at CMAP in coordination with the State of Illinois and local governments. Chicago city growth and development would be facilitated through tax (income, sales, property) incentives. Funding would also come from revenue sharing via collar counties and municipalities, RUC fees, expressway downsizing, and other infrastructure efficiencies. Changes in established development rights in suburban and exurban areas would be addressed to alleviate “takings” concerns through transfer of development rights (TDR) programs.

 

Forthcoming regionally significant projects in the CMAP LRTP would be altered to demonstrate initial implementation of Second City Redux. Such planned projects as they exist now are reconstructing the Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) and CTA Blue Line Forest Park Branch (BLFPB, $6.4+ billion combined); rebuilding Du Sable Lake Shore Drive (DLSD, $3.5 billion); the Red Line Extension (RLE, $5.75 billion); and retain/expand capacities of various Chicago city thoroughfares. Illinois has also been planning the South Suburban Airport (SSA, $1.0+ billion).

 

Consequently, in Chicago city, I-290 and BLFPB would be removed, backfilled, and replaced by a subway and traditional urban form. DLSD would be converted to exclusive bus rapid transit. The RLE would be canceled and existing parallel service expanded. The SSA would also be canceled. Thus, by 2050, significant progress will have been made revitalizing the west side former I-290 corridor. Exclusive DLSD BRT will have transformed the lakefront to a quieter more environmentally friendly shoreline absent traffic congestion, noise, and pollution. Further, thousands of acres outside the UA perimeter will have been saved from uneconomical development. Success will serve as a roadmap for continuation of Second City Redux beyond 2050 as the remaining Chicago city expressways are removed. 

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[1] The Round Lake Beach--McHenry--Grayslake, IL-WI UA would also stop expanding.

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Planning Studies

 

Published Research:

• Arkell, R. (2021). Chicago expressway system retrospective social benefits minus social costs analysis. Case Studies on Transport Policy 9(2): 443-456. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cstp.2021.01.013.

 

Unpublished Planning Documents and Research:

• Grundy County 2020 Comprehensive Plan

• Grundy County Greenbelt and Greenway Plan

• Comments on the O'Hare Modernization Draft Environmental Impact Statement

• Illiana Corridor Expressway Benefit-Cost Analysis

• Chicago Eisenhower Expressway Benefit-Cost Analysis

• The Association of Segregation and Urban Form with Crime

• The Association of Aircraft Operations and Air Quality

• Chicago South Suburban Airport Benefit-Cost Analysis

• CTA Red Line Extension Benefit-Cost Analysis

• NICTD West Lake Corridor Benefit-Cost Analysis

• Dubuque-Rockford-Chicago Amtrak Intercity/Commuter Rail Benefit-Cost Analysis (​Report; Spreadsheet)

• The Built Environment, Travel and Income Inequality (Study, PowerPoint)

• Environmental Sustainability Performance Measures

  • Weighted Population Density as a Transportation Performance Metric

  • Region 5 Statistics