“We love the Ike, but the Ike don’t love us”
Wednesday, Nov 10, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Fox 32…
On Tuesday, Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch and other west suburban politicians called for completely rebuilding the Eisenhower Expressway.
“We love the Ike, but the Ike don’t love us,” Welch said.
The Eisenhower was ranked last year as America’s most-congested interstate highway. […]
Construction of the Eisenhower Expressway six decades ago required bulldozing 400 businesses and the homes of 13,000 people in some of Chicago’s then-most vibrant neighborhoods: Little Italy, Greek Town, the heart of the old Jewish west side and several African American communities.
* WBEZ…
As the city began clearing the path for the Congress Street Expressway, the first neighborhood hit with demolition was the Near West Side. […]
Of all the neighborhoods that the expressway sliced through, the Near West Side had the largest population of blacks in 1950. Nearly 40 percent of its people were African-American. […]
Chicago Mayor Martin Kennelly, who oversaw the superhighway project during his eight years leading the city, sounded proud of the destruction it was causing. “Just wiping out slums, that alone has made the work worthwhile,” he remarked in a Tribune article. […]
The expressway project continued to the west, disrupting the East Garfield Park, West Garfield Park and Austin neighborhoods. It ran through a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in West Garfield Park. “Its construction was a physical manifestation of Jewish Chicagoans’ political powerlessness,” historian Beryl Satter writes in her 2009 book Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America. Satter’s father was a civil-rights attorney who crusaded for black families victimized by real-estate speculators. […]
The story was similar for the Italians who lived nearby. “You can find Chicago Tribune articles calling the neighborhood a slum,” says Kathy Catrambone, co-author of Taylor Street: Chicago’s Little Italy. “I talked to many people who were here at the time, and they didn’t know they were living in a slum. They liked the neighborhood. And they really felt that they were forced out.”
Catrambone says many of the neighborhood’s Italians moved to suburbs like Melrose Park, Elmwood Park and Addison. “A lot of them got on the Eisenhower and headed west,” she says. […]
Christopher Reed, an African-American historian who grew up in East Garfield Park in the 1940s and ’50s, says the expressway did play a role. “The construction of the Eisenhower removed so many white families that an unnatural demographic imbalance took place,” he says. “The lure of the suburbs was powerful, especially with factories and jobs relocating into areas where the new superhighways reached. Equally, blacks sought new housing opportunities and moved into areas where vacancies occurred.”
And David Satter believes the expressway was a major factor in why so many Jewish residents and other whites abandoned the West Side, just as many African-Americans began to move in.
“It played a very important role,” he says. “The building of the Eisenhower Expressway with so little concern for the effect it would have on the community … it undercut any desire or any will to find solutions, to find ways to integrate the new arrivals. It was clear that the area was not going to stay all white. But that didn’t mean there had to be this mass white flight that took place. It didn’t mean that the whole community would have to move from the West Side to the North Side, which is pretty much what happened.
“But there were a lot of factors,” he says. “There were profiteers that were trying to spread panic and get people to move. … But the Eisenhower Expressway, it made people feel that it was the end of an era, and the community would never be the same and it didn’t make sense to fight to stay there.”
There is no doubt that the Ike helped make Chicago what it is today. But a little history never hurt anyone (until lately, apparently).
- Ares - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 9:48 am:
The engineering challenges will be great, and the neighborhood equity challenges will be greater - but not insurmountable.
- NotRich - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 9:56 am:
Just please tell me we are not going back to the discussion of “double decking” the IKE
- City Zen - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:02 am:
“the first neighborhood hit with demolition was the Near West Side”
You mean they didn’t start in the middle?
If you were building a major E-W highway into downtown Chicago, where would it go? Follow the Cermak corridor through Lawndale and Cicero? Maybe North Avenue? Is there an answer that would not displace anyone?
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:07 am:
===Is there an answer that would not displace anyone? ===
Wrong question.
Who could be most easily displaced is the question to ask.
- NotRich - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:14 am:
first the Ike, then Univ of Illinois/Chicago.. both projects destroyed the Italian west side..
- thunderspirit - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:14 am:
== Who could be most easily displaced is the question to ask. ==
“…without political repercussions.” Yes.
Not unlike the question of who suffers from a problem is much less relevant than who profits from it.
- natty lite - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:21 am:
The best and most engaging discussion of the impact of mega highway projects on (poor, ethnic) urban neighborhoods is Caro’s “The Power Broker.” Even 60 years ago there were people advocating for those communities and for things like mass transit and the environment, but they all got completely steamrolled. The American car and highway culture is, like so many things, a representation of American greatness built upon some acts of real cruelty and destruction.
- Donnie Elgin - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:22 am:
Oak Park residents protested and while they could stop the expressway - they did keep many blocks of homes/businesses from the wrecking ball by forcing the goofy left side exits.
“Oak Parkers opposed building exit and entrance ramps from the expressway’s right lanes … As a result of these protests, the highway builders put the ramps on the left side — in the middle of the expressway — at Austin Avenue and Harlem Boulevard. That unusual configuration is something that “a lot of people still complain about today,” says Frank Lipo, executive director of the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest”
- Northsider - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:22 am:
A coupletwo-tree things:
1) Building the Ike also killed the Chicago Aurora & Elgin electric interurban (most of which is now the Illinois Prairie Path);
2) Induced demand will always wipe out any “gains” from widening roads. Inducing more driving is the absolute last thing we should be doing.
3) Rebuild the roadway, bridges, etc., and expand/extend the CTA Blue Line.
- Downstate - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:23 am:
“Is there an answer that would not displace anyone?”
I read a great book on the interstate system. Elevated roadways were considered the way to go. Minimal disruption, minimal displacement.
It killed the neighborhoods. The elevated road became a blight. And the businesses underneath were devastated.
It’s akin to walking under the L tracks in Chicago vs. walking on Michigan Ave.
- Frumpy White Guy - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:29 am:
It will be interesting to see how much property in the area is going to be purchased with blind trusts. Insiders delight.
- Been There - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:30 am:
===It killed the neighborhoods. ====
They are a blight but better than bulldozing everything in its path. Go get a Riccobenne’s on 26th St and ask if those buildings would still be there if that portion was not on stilts. Lots of neighborhood along the Stevenson is still there also.
The Kennedy, Ryan and Skyway pretty much followed railroad embankments and the Stevenson the old canal. They all still took out parts of neighborhoods but the IKE was probably the most destructive.
- Incandenza - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:37 am:
Induced demand, Induced demand, Induced demand. I’m begging reporters to know this one simple economic theory that explains why…
…expanding roads DOES NOT SOLVE congestion
- MisterJayEm - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:38 am:
“We love the Ike…”
This is where Speaker Welch and I part company.
– MrJM
- Montrose - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:39 am:
“Not unlike the question of who suffers from a problem is much less relevant than who profits from it.”
To this point, the other piece to this discussion is how the automobile industry pushed simultaneously for the expansion of the interstate and the destruction of public transportation infrastructure.
- Just Me 2 - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:43 am:
There needs to be a stronger transit option to get people out of their cars and into a train/bus that flys past all the congestion. A few park and rides would do the trick for those coming in from the suburbs or not walking distance to a station.
- Been There - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:48 am:
====…expanding roads DOES NOT SOLVE congestion====
Solve might be too strong of a term but when they redid the Ryan about 15 years ago it definitely helped to reduce the congestion. It still might be bad now at times but it reduced the time to get from downtown to 95th by about a third of the time during rush hour. And totally got rid of back ups in other parts of the day.
- The Opinions Bureau - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 10:49 am:
A good analogy for expressways is to think of cities as a house and the road as boots. They’re great for clomping around outside but should be left by the door before coming indoors.
Interestingly, Ike was not a fan of intraurban expressways being included in the Interstate Highway System construction.
“[The President] went on to say that the matter of running Interstate routes through the congested parts of the cities was entirely against his original concept and wishes; that he never anticipated that the program would turn out this way”
https://seattletransitblog.com/2012/03/10/eisenhower-didnt-want-highways-through-cities/
- DuPage - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 11:02 am:
Pay the displaced residents what it would cost to buy land and build a replacement house of same number of square feet, and moving costs. That would reduce some of the pushback by residents. The way it is done now pays a lowball offer noware near a realistic replacement cost.
- NonAFSCMEStateEmployeeFromChatham - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 11:02 am:
==“[The President] went on to say that the matter of running Interstate routes through the congested parts of the cities was entirely against his original concept and wishes; that he never anticipated that the program would turn out this way”==
Despite the congestion, the I-55/72 bottleneck around Springfield is an example of Ike’s wishes not to route the Interstates through the cities.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 11:03 am:
=== the I-55/72 bottleneck around Springfield===
Oh, please.
- Incandenza - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 11:31 am:
=it definitely helped to reduce the congestion=
Was that the expansion of the freeway or the total hollowing out of south side neighborhoods? population shrinkage could have been the reason for your perception of less congestion.
It’s been studied pretty rigorously and expanding freeways will always have the effect of bringing down the costs of driving, thus creating more demand for driving and resulting in congestion once again. If we truly want less traffic, we need to put a lot more resources into the CTA and expand bus rapid transit around the city like every other major city across the globe.
- Northsider - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 11:34 am:
== If we truly want less traffic, we need to put a lot more resources into the CTA and expand bus rapid transit around the city like every other major city across the globe. ==
BINGO (banned punctuation)
- Rudy’s teeth - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 11:43 am:
For nearly a year, traveled on the Ike from downtown to the Laramie exit. The commute was awful; the alternative was North Avenue.
Sitting in traffic inching along—not for me. Enjoyed the gig but not the trip.
- Chito - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 11:47 am:
Rich bringing CRT to the Fax /S
I wish more articles like these were published. Not enough people know about the history behind our neighborhoods.
- City Zen - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 1:25 pm:
==Pay the displaced residents what it would cost to buy land==
No one would be displaced in the proposed Ike expansion.
- JJJJJJJJJJ - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 2:32 pm:
Is there any evidence whatsoever that expanding will reduce congestion? I implore someone to link one study.
Not to mention the environmental impacts.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 2:35 pm:
===expanding will reduce congestion? ===
Read before commenting…
“incorporates not only bridge and highway upgrades—including a new High Occupancy Toll lane (HOT3+) to support Express Bus service and promote carpooling—but also wider sidewalks, pedestrian safety islands, high visibility crosswalks, lighting, and signals to better facilitate pedestrian/bicycle traffic and transit riders. A concurrent CTA project would upgrade blue line transit facilities, including reconstruction of the entire Forest Park Branch (including track and related infrastructure) as well as stations from UIC-Halsted to Forest Park and six substations.”
https://capitolfax.com/2021/11/09/here-comes-the-next-big-construction-project-push/
- Six Degrees of Separation - Wednesday, Nov 10, 21 @ 3:30 pm:
Extending the Blue Line to Oak Brook instead of fixing the bottleneck on the Ike was studied as a potential solution. It did not move the needle much and was very expensive for the improvements it made, and also took trips away from competing parallel transit lines as much as it displaced automobile trips. Transit expansion benefits were found to have diminishing returns west of Mannheim Road. This is a corridor that needs the kitchen sink thrown at it, including improving both the highway and the rapid transit line, to make it work best.