ALDERMAN: YANK MILLION- DOLLAR MEDIAN PLANTERS
Median planters famously installed by former Mayor Richard M. Daley in the runup to the 1996 Democratic National Convention should be removed to ease traffic congestion on the fast- growing Near West Side, the local alderman said Friday.
Ald. Walter Burnett ( 27th) acknowledged that Chicago taxpayers spent millions to install and maintain the 23 median planters along West Madison Street to beautify the route used for express buses that whisked convention delegates fromtheir downtown hotels to the United Center.
But Burnett said Friday the median planters have “served their purpose” and then some— so much so that traffic congestion in one of the city’s hottest neighborhoods is an even bigger problem.
Now Burnett wants to spend even more money generated by the surrounding tax- increment- financing ( TIF) district to remove the planters along West Madison Street.
“Those planters have served their purpose. They have helped to beautify the area, helped to attract newdevelopment, helped to attract more traffic to the neighborhood. But now, it’s a hindrance on traffic being able to flow steadily up and down the street,” Burnett said.
“I go down Madison. When a bus stops, I can’t get home or get where I’m going because a whole line of people are waiting on the bus to move. . . . It holds up all the traffic. The cars can’t get around the bus because the medians are there . . . [ Removing planters] will give cars the opportunity to go around the bus.”
Burnett said he’s been talking about removing the median planters for years — ever since motorists “started crashing into them.” That forced the Chicago Department of Transportation to “cut ’ em back several times,” he said.
The alderman acknowledged that CDOT remains opposed to removing the planters “probably because of the cost.” But he has an answer for that: the overflowing pot of money generated by the surrounding TIF.
CDOT spokesman Mike Claffey acknowledged that Burnett “brought up this idea with CDOT and the Department told him we are willing to explore it.”
Before Chicago played host to a 1996 Democratic Convention that buried the ghost of 1968, Madison Street was resurfaced and beautified from Halsted past Western with newly- planted trees, early 20th Century ornamental streetlights and the 23 median planters.
When Randolph Street merchants dared to complain that Daley’s penchant for overgrown median planters was an accident waiting to happen, political power broker Oscar D’Angelo reportedly told them, “We spent $ 5 million to put those things in. I don’t care if three or four people have an accident.”