I was happy to see in the Sun-Times on July 30 that the CTA is considering increasing use of signal priority — where traffic signals react to nearby buses by turning green, or if already green, by extending green time. Signal priority not only improves service by decreasing travel times, but it reduces operating costs since buses traverse routes faster, and fewer buses are needed to serve the route with the same frequency of service.
I was also happy to see that the CTA would not be implementing bus rapid transit, or BRT, immediately. The overall net benefits of BRT are much less clear. By taking lanes away from automobile traffic, BRT can increase traffic congestion tremendously with attendant negative effects on businesses and the economy, to say nothing of adverse effects on air quality and greenhouse gases. I hope that well before implementation, the CTA does a thorough study of the effects.
Ashish Sen, former director, Urban Transportation Center, University of Illinois Chicago; former CTA board member
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It seems so primitive to be talking about bus rapid transit when other cities are rapidly building new subway lines using the advanced German tunnel boring machines.
Using dedicated bus lanes on existing city streets only serves to further bottleneck car traffic. People are already complaining about reduced lanes and increased traffic congestion due to the installation of bicycle lanes.
Using the latest high-tech tunnel boring machines, which bore and simultaneously install the tunnel support system and are being used around the world, Chicago could have both north-south and east-west crosstown subway lines that could serve neighborhoods currently miles away from the nearest rapid transit line.
The new subway lines could intersect existing rapid transit lines at convenient transfer points, enabling riders to get to various parts of the city on fast, non-polluting electric trains. Remember Daniel Burnham's directive: "Make no little plans!"
Michael Shawgo, Edgewater
After dinner recently, my husband and I walked south down Michigan Avenue and onto Chicago's Riverwalk. The sun was lowering in the iridescent sky that shimmered back onto the water and high-rise windows. It was magical.
Music was playing at Tiny Tapp so we sat down to take in the scene. We became absorbed in the natural beauty and steady crowd of colorfully dressed pedestrians from all over the world, and it gave us pause.
A popular song with an irresistible beat started to play. Some people couldn't resist getting their groove on and started to dance with the stranger strolling next to them.
Nobody was taking sides or rejecting differences, just appearing enormously grateful to be sharing a beautiful evening. In a burst of emotions, I blurted out, "This is America!"
We have always been a thriving and diverse people, which is what makes this country so exceptional!
Karen Brenner, River North
To letter-writer Ronald Kruzel, who asked where Jacob Sullum got the statistics supporting his true claim that crime is decreasing, I say that this is a really lazy question. In the internet age, those numbers are easily available via Google search if one really wants to know.
Sullum's statement did not surprise me at all. I have long known from those easily available statistics that, nationally, violent and property crimes are historically low and have been declining fairly consistently for about three decades. When I last looked, there were no ivory towers here in Mokena.
However, there is plenty of news about crime. "If it bleeds it leads" has been the local television news mantra for decades. Add the producers of news-like programming, like Fox News, who have interests, both political and monetary, in selling the idea of out-of-control crime.
After Mr. Kruzel checks out those crime statistics, I would ask him to consider something else. He pejoratively spoke of "Democratic-controlled big cities." He should ask himself why Republicans, who like to complain about such cities, seem disinterested in making a serious effort to elect mayors of such cities so they can show us all how it should be done.
My guess is that they know how difficult managing a city is and want no part of it because their performance would take an issue away from them.
Curt Fredrikson, Mokena
President Joe Biden’s proposals for reforming the U.S. Supreme Court and reversing one of its rulings, as well as Jacob Sullum’s defense thereof in the Sun-Times, are way off base.
Biden, displaying the same keen legal knowledge and reasoning that enabled him to finish almost dead last in his class at law school, quixotically argues for a constitutional amendment to undo the rulings in the presidential immunity case. Likely it would be the most politically charged amendment in many years and, as such, has almost no chance to get the required votes in Congress and in the states. While in this dreamland, why didn’t Biden also propose to amend the president’s unfettered pardon powers, which have been abused by both parties?
Then Biden would have Congress establish term limits for Supreme Court justices, despite the express language of the Constitution that they and other federal judges cannot be dismissed save for want of “good behavior.” In the unlikely event that Congress did Biden’s unconstitutional bidding, it would end in litigation and what judge is going to rule in favor of limiting their term?
For good measure, Biden would have Congress set ethical standards for SCOTUS. The ethical North Star for most members of Congress is do anything and everything, without being caught, to get reelected. That would be akin to giving the inmates at Stateville the right to set the rules of behavior.
Biden may have labored mightily, but he has brought forth a mouse.
William P. Gottschalk, Lake Forest
