5 Things Chicago Needs to Fix Now

Anyone who has lived in the Chicago area long enough to consider their self a 'resident' could easily rattle off 10-20 things they think need-a-fixin' in this town. The following are just my top five at the moment.

Number 5

"Legislative Districts"

I'm putting this at number five because it bugs me, I think they're outdated and inappropriate. But I also know that there's a better chance of Archer Ave getting straigtened out first.

If you look at a map of Chicago's legislative districts it'll be pretty self-explainatory. They have to be the most ridiculous, shady, corrupt districts in America. They get defined in private meetings and "deals" between representatives for the main purpose of getting re-elected and preserving power. They serve little, if any, benefit to the residents and businesses of Chicago. Usually, I would claim, the opposite is true.

Number 4

"Expressways and Interchanges"

A major interchange in the heart of Chicago was once listed among the top 10 things in America that need to be addressed. The complex mix of bottle necks, lane changes, ramps, confusing signs, and just pure danger that the average rush-hour driver encounters on the "expressways" of Chicago is quite honestly enough to drive a person insane. (No pun intended!) There should be an 800 number for a 'road-rage' hotline printed on the back of every driver's license issued within 40 miles of Chicago. These roads, which always seem to be under construction, are at least one or two lanes narrower than they should have been 10 years ago. Too many drivers plus not enough road equals bad news. 

I used to have a 17 mile commute into the city every day. A drive which could be as quick as 15 minutes without traffic, would commonly take one to two hours between 2pm and 7pm. Any city with a five to six hour "rush hour" has a problem that seriously needs addressing.

Obama, you want to invest in fixing roads? How about starting in your hometown...

Number 3

Street Cleaning Signs

I swear I remember a time when there were standard, metal signs posted that clearly stated when you could not parked on a street due to normally scheduled street cleaning. What happened to them? Instead, Chicago decided to implement a system of temporary signs to serve this purpose. What happens is the night before they want to clean the road, a mass of city workers canvass the streets and tie paper signs to trees and poles that state no one can park there the following day. Then, that next morning (usually around 9am!) droves of cops with ticket books in hand patrol those areas and leave $50 tickets on the cars of people who didn't even know that they weren't supposed to park there!

What a scam. Sounds illegal doesn't it? Should be. Not to mention who decided that tons, literally TONS of paper signs should be used instead of permanent (re-usable) ones. This doesn't seem very eco-friendly. Especially since most of the paper signs get ripped down by upset, recently ticketed car owners and just thrown on the ground. In fact, it sounds like a huge waste of environmental resources. Which brings me to number 2...

Number 2

"Recycling"

Almost everybody in America has a little rectangular bin that they put out along with their garbage once a week. In that bin we place all items that we seperate out for recycling. This has been available and working for over 10 years in most of the country. But in the 3rd largest city in America what do we do? NOTHING! That's right, nothing. There exists no recycling program for the City of Chicago. Oh, they tried an ill-conceived program a few years ago. This program involved placing recyclables in these over-priced 'blue-bags' and setting them out with the rest of the trash. Unfortunately, there were never any special "recycling trucks" to pick up these bags. So the regular gargage trucks would have to collect them and just threw them in with the rest of the gargbage. At that point, all of it (blue bags AND Hefty bags) recycleable and garbage-garbage, all went to the same place. That's right, the landfill. After perpetrating this scam on the Chicago people for over 10 years, they finally faced facts and ended the rouse a few years ago. 

...Still waiting for a refund on all those expensive blue bags that ended up in the landfills.

Number 1

"Clean Energy"

I had touched on this topic in previous articles posted here and here. And with a little online research I've found that there is some legislation in place to give some tax incentives to Chicagoans who install solar panels on their property. However, I beleive a lot more can and should be done to promote this city's transistion to 'green' energy sources. There are so many possible ideas to help propigate this. Perhaps we could start with just a better marketing plan? Internet, TV, radio? Or considering all the time people in Chicago spend in their cars everyday, maybe enlist the use of a few of those giant billboards to educate people. A lot of people don't know about what's already in place to encourage greener energy use. There could also be more advertisement about the simple choices we can make to improve the situation. Basically I think the public officials just need to get on the same page as the general public. We are eager and willing to do what we can. Just let us know you're willing to help too, Chicago (government).

 "Help us to help you."