New bridges exclusively for pedestrians and bicyclists are gaining a welcome foothold in Chicago, improving access and safety and adding beauty to the landscape from Millennium Park to the south lakefront.
The next installment to the series of spans recently built in the Grant Park area will be the new pedestrian bridge at Monroe Street, connecting Millennium Park to the new modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.
But there is no progress to report on Queen’s Landing, where Chicago officials removed the traffic signal and pedestrian crosswalk to Buckingham Fountain a year ago–without any public notice. Civic leaders, who for the last year have unsuccessfully prodded the city to bring back the crosswalk, are now beginning to focus efforts on forming a public-private partnership.
Their goal on this first anniversary of the crosswalk’s closing is to raise some of the estimated $15 million needed to build a bridge or an underpass at Queen’s Landing, named in honor of Queen Elizabeth II’s 1959 visit to Chicago.
The civic leaders point to the city’s ongoing strategy to sell corporate naming rights to the Chicago Skyway; to the approximately $15 million in private funding donated by Art Institute sponsors for the Monroe Street bridge; and to the Millennium Park bridge paid for in part by British Petroleum.
“This is an easy project to attract private dollars because with millions of people in cars on Lake Shore Drive, on foot and on bikes, it would be the most visible corporate sponsorship in the park area,” said Bob O’Neill, president of the Grant Park Advisory Council.
“With the obvious connection to Queen Elizabeth, I’m going to start by calling [British entrepreneur] Richard Branson at the Virgin Group and British Airways,” O’Neill said.
Chicago traffic authorities initially said it was necessary to remove the Queen’s Landing crosswalk to more efficiently move the 139,000 vehicles a day that travel on Lake Shore Drive through the busy Grant Park area. One pedestrian pressing the “walk” button there, changing a green light to red for 34 seconds, inconvenienced a hundred or more vehicles, they said.
Officials also promised to come up with a solution–a bridge or a tunnel–for pedestrians seeking access from Buckingham Fountain across the eight lanes of Lake Shore Drive to the water’s edge, to Navy Pier and the Museum Campus. Yet a Chicago Department of Transportation feasibility study is still in the conceptual phase.
“Our engineers are taking a look at the available space and concerns related to construction, sight lines and access points with respect to building either a pedestrian underpass or a bridge,” said CDOT spokesman Brian Steele.
“Any large-scale project like this is always going to be a lengthy process.”
The slow pace of progress at Queen’s Landing is leaving some Chicago business and civic leaders dissatisfied.
“Of all the bridges being discussed, this is the most important one, linking Grant Park and the lakefront,” said Louis D’Angelo, chairman of the Chicago Loop Alliance. “It needs to be put at a higher priority.”
The Park District plans to work with other city agencies to develop a workable solution at Queen’s Landing that is aesthetically compatible with the historic nature of the park and improves safety for park users, said Park District spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner.
