Plan for Reducing Congestion on Sheridan....

I prefer elevating road ways where fossil fuel burning cars will travel to burying them, which unfortunately, might continue for up to another fifty years, or more. Regardless, I am a proponent of ameliorating the pernicious effects of the fumes to all but, especially pedestrians, and bikers, where ever possible...

I would probably institute a moratorium on construction in much of Chicago's northern, lakeside neighborhoods, in order to reduce congestion while construction was underway.

Raised platforms would be constructed above Clarke Ave. and Lincoln Ave both, containing most likely 1.5 to 2.5 lane-widths for traffic each, perhaps excluding trucks of a certain size (very large?), since it it not practical to lift certain heavy weights up the ramps, and to construct such a burdensome, heavy, thick network of roads. Limiting the number of lanes, as well as southward orientation/positioning, reflective materials, etc. will ensure that light circulates more abundantly, while the form and massing, will also help ensure air, in buildings, and on pedestrian and bike routes in the city is measurably purer over a long period of time, along with the resulting increases in efficiency (such as avoidance of traffic lights for many travelling through, not to the city - again taking away the burden from Lake shore drive, and the burden of pollution from the lake-shore trail, during the time that carbon emissions from cars persist), and proximity of the release of emissions to the emissions' skyward potential of escape.

On and off ramps will branch off either side of these raised ramps, parking may be made available on other raised platforms over minor streets to compensate for spots lost to, "on and off", ie. descent/ascent ramps.

Ramps will curve gradually, in S-form, to ease ingress egress for low vehicles, and promote smooth transitions

Logan Square Neighborhood Mods (Priorities from a Designer's Perspective)

For modifications to the neighborhood: Firstly, to make sidewalks, roads, and alleys more friendly, green space will be added in areas where the corner of buildings now exist, allowing greater visibility from the ground, and diagonal paths will be added between the new building edges and the green space to shorten, and diversify ground circulation options. , Measured, increased height limits will compensate for the lost ground area, allowing occupable square footage to stagnate or grow. Other specifications for new buildings will be required in order to compensate for disadvantages of increased height, including requisite glass areas, and also, allowances for height provided the other facade materials provide higher reflectivity, ie. marble shard infused concrete, etc. Further diagonal small and larger scale circulatory interventions, ie. roads, paths, interchanges... in the neighborhood and larger vicinity in the city would help provide more services, more locations in general, more easily reachable, to whichever given location.

Additional green-space is to be located, if not in and around every road (each of which should be paved with some greener alternative to asphalt), around all the main roads and highways, especially between now and the time when auto emissions become truly negligible (not in the near future, I would say... unfortunately).

A resource, but also a curse to this neighborhood is the nature of Chicago itself, a huge metropolitan commuter region, Logan Square sits betwixt the heavily trafficked Route 90 Interstate highway, and the NW, Metra Line, featuring Healy Metra Station, both of which, not only interrupt the city fabric drastically, but which emit noise and particle pollution into the neighborhood an vicinities, along with the heavily traveled main roads going East to West, specifically Fullerton Ave.

tbc

Lake' Chicippi' - Mississippi Flood Release Valve, Replenishment of Lake Michigan, Water Cleaning, Transportation, Recreation and Climatic Effects

Some or all of the aforementioned uses coalesced within my mind into this perhaps less than absolutely extravagant idea, which, at present, involves a flood gate, from somewhere suitably upstream from the Chicago region along the Mississippi, which would allow water from the Mississippi to flow into that area west, northwest (even southwest?) of the city, into a man-made lake fashioned to make advantageous use of existing topography/terrain to create volume and area which would provide additional water-mediated climatic moderation to the Chicago metro-region which could bolster the potential of the area to hold higher densities of person without compromising efficiency or health greatly, while creating a park-like oasis which might be used for recreational purposes, and releasing water to a chemical processing plant which might then release it along, even a canal system (:designed to keep the entire region from getting too soggy a la Venice), in order to replenish lake Michigan, since its water is drained from the lake to the Mississippi for the purpose of carrying the cities waste to the Gulf...
Thus, the canal system would be a related project.
The aqueduct project could be an element of this project, but though, similar, was slightly different in that it proposed carrying the water aloft for a longer amount of time, and was more about delivering this flow to the city of Chicago for purposes such as pools, fountains, man-made lakes, as well as replenishing the lake which is being depleted as UrbanLab drew my attention to, in their future of Chicago 2020? project.
Again, It's easier to imagine all this than to actually accomplish it: granted.

This Blog's Purpose

This blog concentrates on architecture not limited to sites within the Chicago city limits, nor to the Chicago regional limits, etc. My approach to architecture is, after all, a global approach, if not a universal one; at least these are goals of my theory/drawing/practice in the field. Thus,reading books not necessarily about architecture, traveling, observing in general, are means for achieving the end of being a more versatile, prepared designer, striving to be well-versed in facts about the actuality of the trajectory of the Earth, not only literally, but figuratively as well, while searching for projects to execute, cognisant of the reality that without ample and adequate consideration an intervention can collapse, and of the fact that there is always going to be room for improvement, and benefits thereof.