The City is apparently mulling over the idea of tearing down the elevated-freeway-esque Western Ave. viaduct (Tribune story). There's a public meeting about this tonight. If you can make it to the meeting, please let us know what happened by posting in the comments section or posting your own blog entry about it for those of us who can't attend.

WESTERN AVENUE IMPROVEMENT PROJECT

The Chicago Department of Transportation will be hosting a Public Meeting to introduce the Western Avenue Viaduct Study and encourage input from the community during the initial study phase. The meeting will take place on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at 7:00pm at the DeVry University Chicago Campus (3300 N. Campbell Avenue, Room 200).

www.flores1stward.com

Tearing down the viaduct would be a wise move on the city's part. Not only would it make our streets more livable, but elevated streets like this are a cash drain and eventually require an overly-expensive major overhaul or reconstruction. There is no reason to have an over-engineered elevated street like this in the city. Other six-corners intersections in the city work just fine. Tear it down and make the avenue welcoming again to all street users instead of just to drivers who want to fly through the neighborhood at high speeds.

These kinds of roads also degrade the surrounding blocks and often disconnect the neighborhood, instead of serving to connect, as streets are intended to do. The viaduct is similar in many ways to the elevated urban freeways that my place of employment is seeking to tear down: http://www.cnu.org/highways .