By Ed Lowe
Senior Writer
Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive was originally constructed as a meandering road along the city’s lakefront. It permitted access to parks, museums and beaches. In 1937 the south segment of the drive and its north counterpart were joined when the Outer Drive Bridge over the Chicago river was built. This section of drive ran from Monroe to Oak streets. Until then, the south side drive stopped at Monroe St., and the north Outer Drive ran from Oak St. to Foster Ave.
The purpose of the Depression-era addition was to give Northsiders the ability to drive on a non-commercial street to what’s now the Museum Campus and offered Southsiders access to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Clearly, the original purpose of the road way was to make a family’s Sunday outing a more pleasant experience.
Today the purpose has changed and the roadway has become a major highway, but the design of the road has not kept pace with its use. The connecting segment was poorly designed with sharp accident-inducing “S” curves on both ends of the new addition. The south end “S” curve was eliminated in the 1970s. The northerly “S” remains problematic and the city has never been able to correct the problem.
A hazard exists at the east end of Oak St. where the drive curves south toward Walton St. In the southbound lanes, accidents occur almost daily, many that go unreported. They are more frequent in southbound lanes because the curve is tighter than for the northbound traffic. Inside approached the city of Chicago’s bureaucracy to find out how many accidents took place at the curve, especially at the inner or southbound end of the drive. No one seems to acknowledge that there’s a problem.
In admitting he couldn’t supply statistics, 18th District Police Lieutenant Schmidt said, “When we answer an accident call there [on Lake Shore Drive], we turn over our report to the Traffic Division within 24 hours.” Lieutenant Schmidt said that a typical accident response would include “two or three squad cars, one or two tow trucks, an EMS vehicle for injuries and one or two fire trucks to clean up spilled fluids.”
Sergeant Cargie in the Police Department’s News Affairs section was equally vague. “We don’t keep statistics on traffic crashes. Any data base we have goes to the Secretary of State,” he said.
Inside spoke to the police department, the fire department division that handles emergency medical services, the Department of Transportation, the Alderman’s office, the fire department and the Mayor’s press office. All offered the phone number of a different office because each one said they had no information on accident statistics. Inside approached the Insurance Information Institute who referred us to the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. None of them knew anything about a problem curve on Lake Shore Dr. or had any statistics.
Finally, Inside was able to get some statistics from Richard Myers, information officer of the State Department of Transportation. The Outer Drive is a state highway and the state is required to keep accident statistics. Myers checked the records and reported that in the two years of 2000 and 2001, there were 145 major accidents involving damage of $500 or more. There were a reported 34 injuries associated with those accidents.
But those state numbers are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to accidents. Any time there is a rain or snow storm—or after the drive has been coated with ice-melting salt—there is a spate of accidents in the southbound lanes.
Since conditions were ripe for an accident-filled hour on Christmas morning, Inside set up an observation post to observe the consequences of salt-coated streets, no precipitation, light holiday traffic, and good visibility.
At 11:15 a.m. a car slammed into the median. The call for help brought out EMS ambulance number 11, fire engine number 98, ladder company E251, one police patrol car and a couple of bags of sand to absorb radiator fluid coming from the injured car. There were no personal injuries and the equipment quickly went back to its respective stations—but not for long. At 12:05 p.m., a Wolley Cab (number 794) collided with a small Japanese car, spun around and came to rest pointing northbound, blocking two lanes of southbound traffic. This brought the city’s squad car number 6104, ambulance number 43 and a return visit of fire truck number 98.
Finally, at 12:15 p.m., only an hour after the first of these crashes, a red sportscar slammed into the median concrete barrier, spun around and hit the barrier again with the rear of the car. There were no injuries and a city tow truck and a police vehicle arrived to move the car off the drive.
In that single hour on a holiday with light traffic, there were three accidents. The annual cost to drivers, estimated to be in the millions of dollars, is a matter between themselves and their insurance companies. But what about the costs to the city?
A few months ago, when the situation was brought to the attention of Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), he promised to install a speed monitor. The monitors use radar to determine the speed of a car and flash it back at the driver. The monitor stayed in place only a few days. “The monitor was vandalized which is why we took it out. But we installed new signage,” Natarus said. The new signage amounted to additional small diamond shaped signs announcing that the speed limit around the curve was 25 miles per hour.
More recently Natarus told Inside, “I will have the digital sign installed again on the southbound lanes. I will also have larger warning signs installed to caution drivers.” Natarus then addressed the real nature of the problem. “We could correct the problem by straightening the drive between North Ave. and Oak St. but this would be almost impossible because of costs and the new drive would wipe out Oak Street beach.”
There are other solutions to the problem. Installing “rumble strips” along this section of roadway would warn drivers of the impending hazard. But the strips are noisy and would disturb local high rise residents along Lake Shore Dr. Another possible solution, perhaps the best available, would be rebuilding the existing drive, banking the turn to make a skid less likely. This could be coupled with rougher pavement to reduce skidding. Yet another solution would involve the installation of flashing overhead signage calling drivers’ attention to the curve.
But the physical damage and personal injuries that result from the poor design of this section of Lake Shore Dr. are only a part of the problem. The costs to the city in sending crews out on such a frequent basis is another, uncounted, cost. Inside tried to get the city’s budget office to find the cost of a single call for an EMS crew, a fire truck, a ladder company and other elements that are needed to clean up after an accident. Additional costs are incurred when the city sends out a crew to repair the median guard rail between the North and South lanes.
About the only help we could find in the city administration came from the City Budget Office’s spokesperson, Lisa Schrader. She explained that city crews are on the payroll during their normal hours, and responding to a call on Lake Shore Dr. does not add to the city’s cost of maintaining the equipment or personnel. It is for this reason that specific cost figures are not maintained.
On the other hand, Ms. Schrader pointed out that the city recovers the costs of its EMS services by billing insurance companies or individuals who require an ambulance. Clearly, when an ambulance responds and there are no injuries, no costs could be recovered. The wear and tear on equipment, the cost of gasoline and mileage-related maintenance are not recorded. Most importantly, when equipment is attending to a Lake Shore Dr. accident, it is not available for other emergencies in the rest of the community.
While accurate figures are impossible to obtain, it’s clear that the cost to taxpayers is high enough to warrant finding a solution that would reduce costs. In a time of budgetary crisis, the city cannot afford to allow the continued presence of a clearly dangerous stretch of roadway that could be corrected. |
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