Panel at MPC's March 1 Roundtable, Bus Rapid Transit on a Roll in Chicago included Rebekah Scheinfeld, CTA, Gabe Klein, CDOT, Warren Ribley, Illinois Medical District and Nick Turner, Rockefeller Foundation
Four major stakeholders for Chicago’s Bus Rapid Transit project participated on a panel last week at MPC’s roundtable, Bus Rapid Transit on a Roll in Chicago, to share their perspective on the importance of this transit investment for the City.
CTA’s Rebekah Scheinfeld focused on the three existing BRT projects and outlined the need for a system plan, scheduled to begin in 2013. CDOT’s Gabe Klein described the design plans for the Central Loop and the Union Station Transportation Center. Klein stressed the need to address how we are moving people through our city, not just cars, as buses in the Loop currently make up four percent of the traffic, but carry 47 percent of the people.
Similarly, buses on Ashland and Western avenues make up one percent of the daily traffic, but carry 14 percent and 18 percent of the people traveling on these roads respectively. Warren Ribley, executive director of the Illinois Medical District (IMD), which sits between Ashland and Western avenues offered a fresh perspective on the value of BRT along these corridors. Whether they are employees or visitors, approximately 100,000 people head to the IMD on a daily basis. With parking lots and street parking regularly at capacity, Ribley stressed that, “we need better options for people getting to the Medical District” and named BRT as being critically important to economic growth of the District and for patient access.
Finally, Nick Turner once again inspired us to truly “go for the gold” when making BRT improvements. The Rockefeller Foundation believes in us – that we could be the first U.S. city to implement truly world-class BRT. The rapid transit system in Chicago was built so that people from anywhere in the City could take CTA downtown. Today, with jobs and households dispersed throughout the city and region, we need to add another layer to our current system that helps make these new connections. BRT can do that for us.
To watch the full roundtable, click here. To view the presentations, click here.