Category: Chicago

Adrienne Alexander tells ChiHackNight what she does as a union lobbyist

February 3, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Adrienne Alexander speaking to ChiHackNight at Braintree. Photo by Chris Whitaker.

Adrienne Alexander speaking to ChiHackNight at Braintree. Photo by Chris Whitaker.

ChiHackNight is Chicago’s weekly event to build, share & learn about civic tech. Me and 100 of my friends (50 of whom are new every week!) meet in the Braintree auditorium on Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. on the 8th floor of the Merchandise Mart. Sign up for notifications on upcoming presenters. The content of my blog post is derived from real-time note taking.

Adrienne Alexander, or @DriXander on Twitter, came to ChiHackNight last night to tell us about her experience as a lobbyist working for the state’s largest public employees union. She lobbies the Chicago City Council and the Illinois state legislature for bills and budget modifications that would impact the members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees council 31.

Members of AFSCME (afs-me) are staff at numerous Chicago city departments and in state government. Alexander watches new bills that come in and analyzes what their impact might have on its members.

She gave the example of the privatization legislation that she lobbied, the Privatization Transparency and Accountability Ordinance, for three years. Salon reported on the PTAO in 2013, saying, “[it] is designed to help prevent abuses of privatization, and avoid the kinds of deals negotiated in the past that were intended to help close budget deficits but turned out to be massive boons for corporations and Wall Street while losing long-term revenue for the city.”

Alexander, however, had been battling efforts to privatize city functions earlier. In 2011, she said, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was trying to privatize the water billing group. This would have been realized by amending the budget and reducing the amount budgeted for that group of staff.

“We represented those folks”, she said. “It got a lot of aldermen upset, it was supposed to save $100,000 annually but also lay off 40 people.” It didn’t happen. And neither did the 311 privatization that Emanuel proposed in 2015 for the 2016 budget. 

Alexander said that it was hard to keep the press focused on this issue for three years, because nothing was happening. “If there’s nothing happening, they would say, then there’s nothing to write about”, she said.

It was passed in November 2015. “It’s hard to get things passed that don’t have the mayor’s support,” Alexander said. “A lot of the calls the aldermen get are not about policy, but about alleys, trash, tree trimming, these very ‘quality of life’ issues specific to their ward”. 

There’s a good reason – for them –in all of this, she explained. “You can be the most citywide alderman, really focused on policy, but if you don’t take care of the stuff in your ward then you will lose your election.”

Alexander gave some advice to ChiHackNight members who are building tools that explain why some policies aren’t working and should change. Claire Micklin asked how to get alders to “mobilize on and care about policy issues, and can they affect policy change from the ground up if the mayor isn’t necessarily generating or supporting that policy issue?”

Micklin led the development of “My Building Doesn’t Recycle”, a map where Chicagoans can report that their multi-unit building doesn’t have a third-party recycling service (required if the tenants of a building with 5 or more units request it).

Alexander said “I think there’s not so much a culture of [alders generating their own policy initiatives] here, but I think it’s possible”.

She advised Micklin, and anyone else who’s working to change a city policy, to:

  • Choose your sponsor carefully.
  • Be clear of what your expectations are, have a plan so you can help guide them
  • Have grassroots support, so it’s more than one person coming and talking to them about it
  • Make sure they’re hearing about it from different places, and find out who else they’re listening to.

In each ward, she said, there’s at least one organization that an alder really cares about, so if that organization is making something an issue, or it would be beneficial to that organization, then they could be helpful.

I’ve seen this kind of organization-derived influence a lot in property development matters. If there’s a neighborhood-based organization that purports to represent resident issues in a specific boundary, then the alder who’s receiving a new property development proposal will ask that the developer meet with the organization to gain their approval. I’ve seen situations, especially in the 1st Ward, where the alder supports the development if the organization supports the development.

Alexander concluded her response to Micklin’s question, saying, “It’s really helpful if you can do a lot of the legwork, and you can get the alderman plugged into the process.”

Cataloging the city’s emails about what staff said regarding Laquan McDonald’s death

January 25, 2016 / / 1 Comment

Screen grab from the released Laquan McDonald video

The City of Chicago released a trove emails spread over eight PDF files containing 3,000 pages, on New Year’s Eve, wherein city staff, including from the mayor’s office, police department, law department, discussed how they should handle countless requests from the media for information about the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

In the middle of the night on October 20, 2014, Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times, killing him.

Over a year later, a dashcam video of the shooting was released, sparking protests, theresignation of Chicago’s Police Chief, a federal investigation, and calls for the Mayor and State’s Attorney to resign.

I set to work that night reading as many as I could, and gathering strangers on Twitter to help read and catalog them.

This blog post is intended to point to the Google Sheet where we – over a dozen people who congregated here via Twitter – recorded the details of each message, including what it said, what we think the communicators meant, and what information was missing.

Read the Laquan McDonald emails catalog.

#Space4Cycling: Chicago needs intuitive bike lanes and other street markings

December 24, 2015 / / 2 Comments
Two bicyclists take different routes around this driver blocking the bike lane with their car

In this case at Milwaukee and Green, space was made and well-marked for cycling but no space was outlined for driving. The driver of the black car must pull up this far to see beyond the parked silver car. In the Netherlands they’ve come up with a solution that would work here: shift the green bike lane toward the crosswalk so that the motorist crosses the crosswalk and bike lane at the same time and has space to wait to turn left between the bike lane and the travel lane.

What does an intuitive bike lane or other street marking mean?

It means that the street user can reasonably (yeah) guess, and guess right, what they’re supposed to do.

For bicyclists in Chicago, the lack of bike lane markings that continue to the edge of an intersection (often demarcated at the stop bar) creates an unintuitive bike lane design.

At intersections, an intuitive bike lane design would mean that the bicyclist and the motorist know where and how to position their vehicles in respect to the other, even if there isn’t a car there yet, or there’s not a bike there yet. Many intersections in Chicago that have protected bike lanes do this; especially the ones with separate signal phases. And these intersections work really well for bicyclists: they stand safely away from motorists, and motorists don’t attempt to occupy these spaces.

Inverted sharrow

The “sharrow before and after the intersection because the city dropped the bike lane” is the most common “didn’t make space for cycling” problem. There was plenty of space to make for cycling here, and nearly every other “sharrow…” situation: it’s along the curb and it’s subsidized, curbside parking for drivers.

But currently at dozens, if not hundreds, of Chicago intersections where the bike lane drops before the intersection, you’ll see bicyclists behave and maneuver in several ways, none of which are accommodated by the street’s design.

Some people will bike between two lanes of cars to the front of the line, and when they get there, lacking a bike box or advanced stop line, they’ll stand with their bike in the area between the crosswalk and the stop bar. If the first car is over the stop bar, then people will usually stand with their bike on the crosswalk.

Riding north on Damen towards Fullerton-Elston

The sharrow painted on the pavement, and an accompanying sign saying, “shared lane – yield to bikes” are unintuitive because no one can occupy the same space at the same time, and the symbols don’t communicate who gets first right to a specific part of the road space. In the end, though, in a situation like this, I’ve never seen someone wait back this far on their bike, and many will consider riding on the sidewalk to get to the front. When they get there, though, they won’t find any #space4cycling.

Others will bike between a lane of cars and the curb to get to the front of the line.

New buffered bike lane on Halsted just ends

This is another version of the “sharrow before and after the intersection because the city dropped the bike lane”. Why’d they drop it in this instance? To make space for Halsted Street drivers turning right, and to push more drivers northward through its intersection with Clybourn Avenue.

Others will wait to the side of drivers, and other still will wait behind a line of cars, putting themselves at a major time disadvantage as the people who biked up to the front. Not to mention they’ll choke on more fumes.

Then, when the light turns green, motorists behave differently. Some will follow behind the first bicyclist, while others will try to pass but closely because they’re essentially sharing a lane side-by-side – this exerts a lot of mental stress on the bicyclist.

Where the city has built space that’s absolutely not to be shared (meaning it’s for the exclusive use by people bicycling), then the designs are substandard because they still allow or seem open to driving. Otherwise, though, space for cycling that’s “part time” is only usable space for those holding the most power and not for the people riding bikes who need it.

frankling at washington bike lane (composite image)

In this new design that built a “protected intersection” for bicyclists going north on Franklin and east on Washington Street, the bike space is still a drivable area. (Top photo by Kevin Zolkiewicz; bottom photo by Skip Montanaro)

These deficiencies in Chicago’s bike lane network are often the result of failing to make, or make well, space for cycling from space used for parking or turn lanes.

Bicycling on the Dearborn Street bike lane

Three years after the City of Chicago built the novel and well-used two-way cycle track on one-way Dearborn, this situation north of the track still exists. And somehow they expect drivers on a 4-lane road to travel at 20 MPH.

This is 2015 and we continue to “not make space for cycling” despite every policy that calls for making bicycling in Chicago safe and convenient so that more people will do it. It’s just that in the unwritten policies it says that you can implement that policy if it doesn’t impede driving*.

* The City of Chicago has built many road diets (a reduction in the number of travel lanes) in the last four years, and some before that. A few of these have worked well for bicyclists, like on 55th and Vincennes where they built protected and buffered bike lanes, respectively (and Dearborn through the Loop).

I put road diets in a note after “impede driving” because they’re only done where they also won’t make local traffic more congested on that street or an intersecting streets.

On the face of it, that’s exactly what many people believe they’ll do because a road diet removes or converts lanes and that’s seen as the same as reducing car capacity which will shift that car traffic to other streets. That pretty much doesn’t happen and the city only implements road diets on streets that have MORE capacity than is used.

Which places in Chicago get the most building permits?

December 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments
View from the CTA green roof

The Merchandise Mart in the Near North Side community area ranks second place in locations receiving the most building permits.

Ed. note: I changed the title of this blog post because one interpretation of the original, “Where are the most building permits issued in Chicago?”, has the answer “City Hall”, the location of the issuer. My bad. 

Without regard to type or construction cost, the most building permits in the City of Chicago are issued at 11601 W Touhy Ave.

Where is that? It depends on which geocoder you use.

Two buildings at 11601 W Touhy Ave from Google Street View. The City of Chicago has issued thousands of building permits to this address, but the work is actually distributed across the O'Hare airport grounds. Google Maps and the Cook County parcel map places these buildings in Des Plaines.

Two buildings at 11601 W Touhy Ave from Google Street View. The City of Chicago has issued thousands of building permits to this address, but the work is actually distributed across the O’Hare airport grounds. Google Maps and the Cook County parcel map places these buildings in Des Plaines.

Google Maps puts it on this building that’s on a street called “Upper Express Drive” and in the city of Des Plaines, Illinois. But the City of Chicago wouldn’t issue building permits in another city.

Our own geocoder converts the geographic coordinates given in the city’s building permits database for these permits to the address “399 E Touhy Ave, Des Plaines, IL”. The Cook County parcel for the same location has the address “385 E Touhy Ave, Des Plaines, IL”.

Now where is this building?

It’s at O’Hare airport, and it’s one of a handful of addresses* the city’s buildings departments uses to denote permits issued to work at O’Hare. Since 2006 to Saturday, December 12, 2015, there’ve been 2,403 building permits issued here. The permits’ work descriptions indicate that a lot of the work occurs elsewhere on the airport grounds.

13 buildings have had more than 400 permits issued since 2006 to yesterday.

address community area count
11601 W Touhy Ave O’Hare

2403
222 W Merchandise Mart Plz Near North Side

802
141 W Jackson Blvd Loop

538
233 S Wacker Dr Loop

518
2301 S Lake Shore Dr Near South Side

516
30 S Wacker Dr Loop

510
5700 S Cicero Ave Garfield Ridge

495
500 W Madison St Near West Side

482
227 W Monroe St Loop

422
55 E Monroe St Loop

421
875 N Michigan Ave Near North Side

408
151 E Wacker Dr Loop

407
350 N Orleans St Near North Side

401

A pattern emerges: 10 of these 13 buildings are in the Central Business District and the other three are O’Hare airport, McCormick Place (2301 S Lake Shore Drive), and Midway airport (5700 S Cicero Ave).

The first location that’s outside the Central Business District and not one of the city’s airport or its convention center is at 1060 W Addison St – better known as Wrigley Field – in the Lake View community area with 321 building permits issued. It ranks #30. If you keep running down the list, the next most frequently issued location is 7601 S Cicero Ave – that’s the Ford City Mall and I think the city’s only sprawl-style indoor mall. It ranks #39 because it pulls monthly electric maintenance permits.

The Merchandise Mart’s position at #2 is notable because the majority of its permits are for small amounts of work: there is a lot of electrical rewiring done because of the frequent shows and exhibitions in the interior design materials “mall”.

The Mart sees other activity, though, including multi-million renovations for technology companies like Motorola Mobility and Braintree. The Mart also received a permit this year for a new $3 million staircase construction, part of its building-wide renovation project.

Rendering of new main (south) lobby staircase at the Merchandise Mart

This rendering shows a new grand staircase that will be built in the Merchandise Mart’s south lobby jutting from the side of the lobby that’s between the doors on the Chicago River side, and the reception desk and central elevator bank. A building permit issued this fall puts the construction cost at $3 million.

If you want to know more about building trends in Chicago, send me a message through the Chicago Cityscape website and I can put together a custom report for you.

* Other addresses I’ve noticed are:

  • 10000 N Bessie Coleman Dr
  • 10000 W Ohare St
  • 11600 W Touhy Ave
  • 11555 W Touhy Ave

Of these only the two Touhy Ave addresses are logical: O’Hare Street isn’t a real road, and 10000 N Bessie Coleman Dr is much further north than the northernmost point in Chicago.

How to use Chicago Cityscape’s upgraded names search tool

December 7, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Search for names of people who do business in Chicago.

I created a combined dataset of over 2 million names, including contractors, architects, business names, and business owners and their shareholders, from Chicago’s open data portal, and property owners/managers from the property tax database. It’s one of three new features published in the last couple of weeks.

Type a person or company name in the search bar and press “search”. In less than 1 second you’ll get results and a hint as to what kind of records we have.

What should you search?

Take any news article about a Chicago kinda situation, like this recent Chicago Sun-Times article about the city using $8 million in taxpayer-provided TIF district money to move the Harriet Rees house one block. The move made way for a taxpayer-funded property acquisition on which the DePaul/McCormick Place stadium will be built.

The CST is making the point that something about the house’s sale and movement is sketchy (although I don’t know if they showed that anything illegal happened).

There’re a lot of names in the article, but here are some of the ones we can find info about in Chicago Cityscape.

Salvatore Martorina – an architect & building permit expeditor, although this name is connected to a lot of other names on the business licenses section of Cityscape

Oscar Tatosian – rug company owner, who owned the vacant lot to which the Rees house was moved

Bulley & Andrews – construction company which moved the house

There were no records for the one attorney and two law firms mentioned.