Assessment of Community Planning for Mass Transit: Volume 4—Chicago Case Study February 1976 NTIS order #PB-253682 OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT DIRECTOR’S OFFICE Emilio Q. Daddario, Director Daniel V. De Simone, Deputy Director URBAN MASS TRANSIT ADVISORY PANEL George Krambles, Chairman, Chicago Transit Authority Walter J. Bierwagen Bernard M. Oliver Amalgamated Transit Union Hewlett-Packard Corporation Robert A. Burco Simon Reich Oregon DOT Gibbs and Hill Jeanne J. Fox Thomas C. Sutherland, Jr. Joint Center for Princeton University Political Studies Frederick P. Salvucci Lawrence A. Goldmuntz Massachusetts Economics and Science Planning DOT Dorn McGrath Stewart F. Taylor George Washington University Sanders and Thomas, Inc. OTA TRANSPORTATION PROGRAM STAFF Gretchen S. Kolsrud, Program Manager Mary E. Ames Larry L. Jenney V. Rodger Digilio Bev Johnson Thomas E. Hirsch, 111 Teri Miles CONTRACTORS Skidmore, Owings and Merrill System Design Concepts, Inc. 111 PREFACE This report on urban transportation planning in the Chicago, Illinois metropolitan area is one of nine case studies undertaken by the Office of Technology Assessment to provide an information base for an overall assessment of community planning for mass transit. The findings of the overall study are reported in the summary document, AN Assessment of Community Planning /or Mass Transit, which forms the first volume of this series. The assessment was performed at the request of the Committee on Appropriations of the U.S. Senate, on behalf of its Transportation Subcommittee. The study was directed by the Office of Technology Assessment’s Transportation Program Staff with guidance and review provided by the OTA Urban Mass Transit Advisory Panel. The firms of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and System Design Concepts, Inc., were contractors for the study. This assessment is a joint effort, identifying different possible points of view but not necessarily reflecting the opinion of any individual. INTRODUCTION This report assesses how one of nine major The assessment of transit planning in each of the United States metropolitan areas made its decisions nine metropolitan areas has been an inquiry into an about the development or modernization of rail evolving social process. Consequently, the study transit. results more closely resemble historical analysis than classical technology assessment. The assessment of the nine cities attempts to identify the factors that help communities, facing This study employs a set of evaluation guidelines critical technological choices, make wise decisions to orient the investigation in the nine metropolitan that are consistent with local and national goals for areas and to provide the basis for comparative transit. The study investigates the following issues: judgments about them. The guidelines were derived from issues identified during preliminary ● Are there major barriers to communication visits to the metropolitan areas, a review of Federal and cooperation among governmental requirements for transit planning, and an in- agencies involved in transit planning and vestigation via the literature into the state-of-the- operating? Do these barriers interfere with art in the field, making sound decisions ? The evaluation guidelines cover major topics . Do transit decisions reflect the combined which were investigated during the case assess- interests of all major public groups, in- ment process. They deal with the character of the cluding citizen organizations, trade unions, institutional arrangements and the conduct of the the business community, and others? technical planning process. Does the planning process provide enough information about the advantages and disadvantages of alternative courses of GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSMENT: action to provide a solid basis for making INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT decisions ? ● Does the availability or lack of financing, or Some of the most significant influences on the conditions under which financing has transit planning are exerted by the organizations been provided, unnecessarily limit the responsible for conducting the planning and range of options that are considered? making the decisions. Three guidelines were used to evaluate the institutional arrangements in the The ultimate purpose of the work has been to nine metropolitan areas: cast light on those prospective changes in national transit policy and administrative programs which ● Agencies responsible for various aspects of might improve, in different ways and to different transit decisionmaking should cooperate extents, the way communities plan mass transit effectively in a clearly designated “forum”. systems. The nine cities were selected to represent ● The participants in this forum should have the full range of issues that arise at different stages properly designated decisionmaking in the overall process of planning and developing a authority, and the public should have transit system. formal channels for holding decision- San Francisco, for example, has the first regional makers accountable for their actions. rail system built in decades, while Denver is ● Citizens should participate in the transit planning an automated system, and voters in planning process from its beginning and Seattle have twice said “no” to rail transit funding should have open lines of communication proposals. with decisionmakers. vii GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSMENT: representative of the transportation planning TECHNICAL PLANNING PROCESS institution and other main participants in the Iocai planning process. The visits were supplemented by interviews with UMTA officials in Washington. The technical planning process provides the Pertinent documents—official plans, reports, information that public officials and their con- studies, and other material—were reviewed in each stituents draw upon in making plans and decisions. case. Four guidelines were used to assess the technical planning process in the nine metropolitan areas: The information thus collected was used in compiling a history of the transit planning process in each case area, organized around key decisions ● Broad, explicit goals and objectives should such as the decision to study transit, the selection of guide technical planning and decision- a particular transit system, and public ratification making. of the decision to pay for and build the system. The ● main political, institutional, financial and technical A range of realistic alternative solutions characteristics affecting the conduct of the plan- should be developed. ning process were then assessed in light of the ● The evaluation of these alternatives should evaluation guidelines. give balanced consideration to a full range The same set of guidelines used in assessing each of goals and objectives. case metropolitan area was employed in making a ● A practical and flexible plan for financing generalized evaluation of the metropolitan ex- and implementation should be developed. perience. The results of the generalized evaluation are summarized in the report, A H Assessment of Community Planning for Mass Transit: Summary Report, During visits to each of the nine metropolitan issued by the Office of Technology Assessment in areas, the study team interviewed the principal February 1976. Vlll CONTENTS SUMMARY AND HIGHLIGHTS . 1 METROPOLITAN SETTING . ● . ● . 3 General Characteristics . 3 Existing Passenger Transportation Systems . 5 Transportation Planning Institutions . 7 CRITICAL HISTORY OF TRANSIT PLANNING AND DECISIONMAKING . 13 Early Transit Planning in Chicago . 13 Joint Transit-Expressway Planning . 14 The Skokie Swift . 17’ The Central Area Transit Project . 21 The Crosstown Expressway . 25 The 1995 Transportation System Plan . 25 CHRONOLOGY OF THE TRANSIT PLANNING PROCESS . 29 ASSESSMENT OF THE PLANNING AND DECISIONMAKING PROCESS . 33 Institutional Context . 33 Technical Planning Process . 40 SUMMARY CASE ASSESSMENT . 45 67-739 0.76-2 ix Summary and Highlights ● Chicago was the first city in the United the developing lakefront areas both north States to systematically take advantage of and south of the central business district. expressway planning and design in order ● Acceptance of a financially viable central to place rail rapid transit lines in the area plan and resolution of the long- median strips of highways. standing controversy over the Crosstown ● The joint development of the Congress Expressway are the major decisions Expressway and subsequently the Dan facing the Chicago area. If and when Ryan and Kennedy Expressways produc- these decisions are resolved, the Chicago ed 24 miles of modern rapid transit lines area will have established the major and the potential for 19 additional miles of components of its transit and highway lines at relatively low cost. capital investment program for many years. ● The development of the Skokie Swift service at low cost proved that greater ● Commuter railroads, which historically than anticipated ridership can be attained have played an important role in access to with a service that responds to public the central business district, took a self- desires—time savings through fast serv- interested lead in the creation of subur- ice and convenient origin-to-destination ban transit districts in order to obtain transfers among modes at a reasonable public subsidy funds for capital and price. operating expenses. The self-interest (to avoid absorbing large losses), however, ● The major transit planning and develop- led to the preservation and substantial ment project in Chicago since 1968 has improvement of an important