The Chainlink

Chainlinkers for Chuy - donate your time!

Hey friends on wheels,

I'm a part of a volunteer cultural committee putting on a big concert and rally for Chuy Garcia next Sunday, March 29, at Alhambra Palace downtown Chicago. I am still in need of a few additional volunteers:


Setup

Cleanup

Poster and postcard distribution this week

One more SECURITY volunteer (experience and formidable presence helpful)

Please email me at poptart@gmail.com if you are interested in supporting this candidate and this event next week. It's going to be incredibly diverse, energizing, and fun!

Thanks!

 

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Permalink Reply by Tom A.K. on March 28, 2015 at 12:38pm
Just a bump for this event. The rally and concert to benefit and support the candidacy for Mayor of the city of Chicago for Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia will be tomorrow, 3/29/15 from 6pm-10pm at 1240 w. Randolph st. $25.
Hope to see you there !
Permalink Reply by JeffB on March 30, 2015 at 11:33am

+1

from the article:

" If we can prevent serious injuries and deaths, punish scofflaws and raise revenue for our broke city, that's a win-win-win. Should Garcia be elected, he ought to make the traffic cam program as effective, transparent and fair as possible rather than abolishing it."

"In a recent op-ed in the paper, transportation advocates noted that the coalition, which believes it's more important to maintain the status quo than to expand the rapid transit network, is selling “false populism” to politicians like Garcia. One-quarter of households within a half-mile of Ashland don't own cars. Creating a fast, reliable bus line that connects many train lines, job centers, schools and hospitals would make it much easier for low-income and working-class people to get where they need to go."

Permalink Reply by Tom A.K. on March 30, 2015 at 12:15pm
Quote from John Greenfield:
"Of course, nobody likes to get a ticket for blowing a red light or speeding. A number of Rahm Emanuel's questionable actions have made automated enforcement - a good thing - look bad".

Candidate Garcia may review this whole system and keep what improves safety and is run fairly.

Regarding BRT, the city and it's transit system should go back and reinstate 'express buses' on Ashland/Western and other main routes. Hire back the bus drivers and have the extra buses not have to stop every block and things won't move at 'glacial speed'. Just having a few BRT buses move slightly faster isn't worth the avenue's reworking.

Buses now are highly erratic and bunched up and unreliable. It seems at times there is no supervision for drivers on the route like there was years ago. A reworked BRT isn't going to change that. Bring back the 'express bus system' we had a few years back. It worked just fine !
Permalink Reply by John Greenfield on March 30, 2015 at 2:43pm

Thanks for discussing my Crain's Op-ed. The old Ashland express buses ran at 10.3 mph, only marginally faster than the 8.7 mph locals, because they got stuck in car traffic. The Ashland BRT buses, with car-free lanes, would run at 15.9 mph, comparable to the 'L'.

Here's a new article comparing how Rahm and Chuy differ on key transportation issues: http://newcity.com/2015/03/30/checkerboard-city-transit-platforms/

Not an endorsement of either candidate, but here's the skinny:

Traffic cams:

Rahm says he will reform the program, Chuy says he will abolish it.

Ashland BRT:

Rahm proposed it, Chuy implied he would water down or kill the plan. 

CTA's Belmont flyover

Rahm proposed it, Chuy implied he'd kill it.

Road diets:

Rahm has done a lot of them, Chuy said he'll do them but more public input is needed.

Protected bike lanes:

Rahm has built a lot of them, Chuy said he'll build them “where there’s good support for building [them].”

Permalink Reply by Tom A.K. on March 30, 2015 at 3:10pm
Your estimate of Ashland BRT buses moving at 15.9mph is a 'guesstimate' because it doesn't take into account the slowdown affect from vehicular traffic diverted from the BRT route now using parallel streets. Even with control of switching red lights on and off, the human factor of clogging up intersections will still be there. I don't see BRT buses moving any faster than express buses did.
Permalink Reply by Duppie on March 30, 2015 at 9:35pm
That is a very spcific concern that makes me think that you were you part of the scenario modeling effort that took place to come up with this estimate, and are familiar with the individual events that were included and excluded in the scenarios? Because if you are I would love to hear more about that.
Permalink Reply by Duppie on March 30, 2015 at 2:46pm
It appears that the victims of Mr Garcia's transportation policies would be the same ones that he claims to represent: Average Chicagoans wo don't live on the northside and may rely on public transit and foot to get around.
Permalink Reply by Tom A.K. on March 30, 2015 at 3:31pm
What's wrong with getting public input for any issue you want to decide on if it's supposed to affect/benefit it's citizens. If you want to work out the differences and the resentment to change you have to have discussions and figure it out. Then the mayor would have to make the final decision. I have confidence that Mayor Garcia would make the proper decision.
Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on March 31, 2015 at 9:24am

Public input is, in general, a great thing. But public input, and aldermen caving into it is what killed bike lanes on Vincennes and scores of other places in the city. Bike infrastructure can't be left to the whim of individual aldermen and their constituents. If we want to ride, and want others to ride we need to be able to do it safely all over town, not just in areas where people already ride. What if the people of a given ward decided that they would prefer to drive on the left side of the street? Or perhaps tear up all their streets? Should we let public input carry the day on such matters? Of course not. The same standard should be applied to bike infrastructure - it can't be up to local residents - we need consistent safe bicycle infrastructure city-wide.

Lots of people feel that they need to drive because they live in areas that are poorly served by transit and are not safe to bike in (and most people don't see biking as a year-round alternative even with bike infrastructure). So it is sad, but understandable that some commuters in some of the more distant from downtown neighborhoods feel threatened by bike lanes as those lanes appear to compete for road-space. The solution is to make riding a bike or taking transit feasible in those more neighborhoods, not less feasible.

Chuy seems to be saying that he won't impose bike lanes on neighborhoods that don't want them, as if the only people who might want to ride in any given neighborhood already live there. By that logic would he also support walling off neighborhoods? What's next? checkpoints? Gated communities?

Permalink Reply by JeffB on March 31, 2015 at 10:42am

Chuy strikes me as a panderer, not a leader. Public input is great, but we need a leader who can make decisions that might be unpopular at first. Change is often hard for people to accept at first. He seems like he'd cave to NIMBYs.

Permalink Reply by Tom A.K. on March 31, 2015 at 11:51am
Tony and Jeff, there are still many undecided voters(~19%) out there thinking about this election.

Change is hard for people to accept at first. It will be the goal of Mayor Garcia to go forward with bike lanes. Chuy did say, "I WILL support continuing to EXPAND the city's network of protected bike lanes and neighborhood bike routes to fill in the gaps and provide safe access to all parts of the city".

I am confident, that as mayor, Chuy will make decisions for the best interests of all in our great city!
Permalink Reply by Duppie on March 31, 2015 at 2:47pm
According to the latest poll numbers, only 9% of voters are undecided.
http://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/7/71/484442/new-poll-s...

More importantly, this poll shows Rahm at 58%, with 3.7% margin of error. That mean that even if all undecided voters break for Garcia, , Rahm still would win.

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