Biking to Work in Joliet, IL

Since I’m discussing transportation this week in my SUST 210 Sustainable Future online class at Roosevelt University, I thought it most appropriate to use my bike to commute to work. Some of our sources I’m analyzing with my students speak directly to the need for active/alternative transportation modes, and how such systems relate to urban design and community structure.

I am not a “hard core” cyclist who buys fancy gear and takes 100-mile rides through the countryside; nor am I an urban bike renegade who likes to blow through any intersection at as high a speed as possible. I consider myself very much an average-ability and safety-minded cyclist of modest endurance, someone who doesn’t mind putting on warm clothes and biking to the train station or to a local destination in cold weather or a drizzle. In the Netherlands, I would be in good company; here in the US, that probably puts me within 0.5% of Americans.

My first decision yesterday: should I really take my bike, or should I drive? I had to go to Joliet’s Barnes and Noble bookstore way out by the Louis Joliet Westfield Mall, a destination located about 6 miles from my house and on a very busy road (US Route 30). Then I had to go to the public library to work, then back home. It would be a long trip, and I had a lot to do that day. Did I really have time for all that? And what about carrying my notes and computer on my back, plus the presents I would be purchasing at the bookstore?

It was cold, 28 degrees F, but sunny and not too windy — and I decided to try it. After all, biking would keep my GHG emissions down to zero, plus I’d get some much-needed February exercise. The extra time from biking would be more than repaid by the free workout I’d be getting! My rationalization complete, I tapped into my somewhat extensive personal knowledge of safe Joliet street/trail routes, and headed off. Here is a map of the route I took.

Note the out-of-the-way path I took to get to the bookstore, a 6.1 mile trip that could’ve been much shorter had I traveled directly. But Route 30 is a busy and dangerous road, and I prefer to avoid hi-traffic streets. There are no bike lanes on Rt. 30. In fact, there are no bike lanes anywhere in Joliet. So I took a quiet E-W residential route to a N-S rails-to-trails path on Joliet’s West Side, then headed north along the trail. That linked up with another trail, one within the Will County Forest Preserve’s Rock Run Marsh. Consequently, even though I was in a highly developed part of Joliet’s West Side, much of my ride was bucolic, and all of it was safe and quiet, except for crossing busy arterial streets. This is a route I’ve ridden with my kids many times. You can see water, trees, cattails, and prairie grasses; you can hear and see a lot of birds. It’s a nice way to travel.

That left me with a short job on Route 30 to get to the bookstore, which actually was OK. Once there, I was able to relax while listening to Miles Davis on the store radio, surrounded by books (itself a delight), and with good access to a bathroom and the BN cafe, which has free wi-fi. Life was good!

My ride to the public library was shorter, but on a busy N-S road on Joliet’s West Side. Lots of room for cars, but no dedicated bike lane here. As noted above, there no bike lanes in the city of Joliet, a real flaw in the town’s transportation infrastructure. Despite this deficiency, parts of town are very bike-able because of a plethora of quiet residential streets, some of which cut through town in helpful ways. However, this network is very limited, and known only to people who seek out such knowledge.

Back to my journey to the library: Essington Road had a good sidewalk, so I used that as well as the street to head south to my destination. Upon reading the Rock Run Forest Preserve trailhead, I left the street and rode a paved trail the rest of the way to the library, which sits on the eastern edge of the preserve and has beautiful views of its woods and marshlands. It is always uplifting to my spirits to come here, and sometimes I take a short break from working at the library to take a stroll in the woods or along the marsh’s edge.

So, my commute to work was about 9.5 miles, according to Google maps (which lets you map out bike routes, by the way), plus the 3.5 miles home after my library session (13 miles total). My total commuting time for this workday was 30min + 18min + 20min for the three legs of the commute, or 68min total. This compares most favorably with my door-to-door commute to the Schaumburg Campus (120min in the car) or my train commute to downtown Chicago (1hr 45min each way, door-to-door, or 3.5 hours total).

Guess how many bikes I saw on my cycling route yesterday? None. I did see several people walking or working in their yards, and all of us greeted each other with a pleasant hello. (I don’t do that while driving; do you?) I also saw hundreds of cars. I can’t recall if I saw a PACE bus, which probably means I didn’t.

Morning Meditations and the Cathedral Area Regional Airport

The springtime dawn is especially peaceful in my neighborhood, Joliet’s quiet and historic Cathedral Area. I rise early to make coffee, feed the cat, and shuffle out to get the morning papers. A white-throated sparrow sings his melancholy song from a pine tree; rabbits mosey through the lush grass. It’s a tranquil beginning to the day.

Joliet's Cathedral Area, as seen from the air in the summer of 2006 (photo: Mike Bryson)

Recently, though, my morning was brutally shattered by a noisy demolition crew outside my front windows. Men were chain-sawing down trees along the street, a bulldozer was ripping up sidewalk and lawn turf, and some beefy guy was hammering a big wooden sign in what remained of my front yard.

Spilling some coffee on the cat in my haste, I rushed outside to confront the sign-planter.

“Hey!” I protested eloquently. “It’s only six a.m.! My wife and kid are asleep, and I’m trying to relish my morning ritual. Who are you guys, and what in the name of Art Schultz is up with this racket?”

The man stopped, lit a cigar, and looked down at me with a stony expression. “Name’s Arny, not Art. We’re private contractors workin’ for the state.” He turned and yelled, “Harry — take down that sycamore over there!”

I did a little involuntary dance meant to signify rage, but Arny seemed unmoved. He just jerked a thumb toward the sign.

Bold letters proclaimed: CATHEDRAL AREA REGIONAL AIRPORT. Open May 2008 Pending FAA Approval. Sincerely, (signed) Illinois Department of Transportation.

“You can’t do this!” I shouted over the noise of the dozer. “Just because the City Council is thinking about allowing a bed and breakfast over on Western Avenue doesn’t mean you can build an airport here. This is a 100-year-old residential neighborhood with quaint and charming character. We homeowners have rights!”

Arny sympathetically puffed his stogie in my direction. “Quit cryin’, pal. All’s I know is, your street’s gonna be a jet runway. State needs land, they take it. Ever hear of eminent domain? Besides, you’re lucky. Guy across the street, his house is history. Control tower’s going up there.”

I’ve always been one to look at the bright side of any situation, no matter how inherently crappy. Maybe Arny’s right, I thought, sipping the remains of my coffee. At least my house wasn’t being demolished. My commute to Chicago would be a snap, because I’d be able to walk to the departure terminal in five minutes. And the constant stream of plane exhaust would likely keep the bugs down during the summer.

Yes, the morning’s a little noisier here, and I can’t hear the sparrow’s song anymore. But it’s truly inspirational to see IDOT embark on another bold civic endeavor — and I’ve got a great view of the action.

This essay appeared as my regular monthly op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News on 14 May 2007. It was the second in an ongoing series of columns on the controversy surrounding the proposed “South Suburban Airport” near the small town of Peotone in Will County, Illinois. While I do in fact reside in Joliet’s Cathedral Area and like to get up early, the rest of this essay is merely a nightmarish fantasy. Any resemblance to an actual Will County airport project is purely coincidental.

Snowfall in an Urban Woodland

Last week we finally made the transition from autumn to winter, after weeks of unseasonable warmth that gave us a brown holiday season and made small children throughout the Chicago region wonder if it would ever snow again.

A "crick" that feeds into Hickory Creek; Pilcher Park, Joliet IL (M. Bryson)

When last week’s storm blew in, I was lucky enough to be deep in a wooded wilderness — rather than stuck in snarled traffic or confined to a windowless office, where we think of snow as irritating or irrelevant, rather than the miracle it is. But I wasn’t on a fancy ski trip at a remote Colorado resort, or  snowshoeing in the northern woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; I was right here in Joliet, Illinois, in the middle of a perfectly ordinary weekday.

As I dropped my younger daughter off for pre-school at the Nature Center in Joliet’s Pilcher Park last Thursday morning, the snow began to fall, gently and steadily. The children gathered to start their day in the woods, all bundled up with thick mittens and noisy snow-pants and stout boots, their sense of joy infectious. Instead of lining up quietly as usual, they whooped and ran, skidded and flopped, embracing the snow with the full passion of childhood.

I was inspired, both by the kids’ delightful gamboling and the utter beauty of the woodland scene before me. Normally I leave the park and work dutifully answering email and meeting writing deadlines at the nearby downtown library or Jitters Coffee House before returning to retrieve my four-year-old naturalist. But that day I ignored my to-do list and took a winter ramble in the park as the wet snow coated my glasses and clung to my beard.

I am particularly fond of the Outer Loop trail, which winds through the northernmost and most remote section of Pilcher Park, a hill-and-valley landscape of towering trees and meandering creeks. Though beautiful in any season, the forest now displayed stunning visual complexity: every branch, twig, seed pod, dried stem, and piece of leaf litter was coated with snow; every textured surface outlined in delicate white.

Soon I came to my favorite spot in the park, an overlook marked by a low stone wall. Here one has a commanding view of a broad wooded valley from a sixty-foot-high bluff. The only sounds were the ticking of snow upon my coat, the cheep of a lone sparrow, and the distant whistle of the Rock Island train.

Looping my way back, I meandered along Hickory Creek, which defines the park’s southern border. Few things beguile more than a flowing stream in a snowy woodland, its rippling music foretelling of colder days ahead — when the restless water turns to ice, and the river sleeps with the woods.

Winter in Pilcher Park: Hickory Creek, 19 Jan 2012 (M. Bryson)

In such places, liberated from human noise and litter by the gathering snowfall, one may comprehend the value and special magic of urban wilderness — the wild close at hand, even here in our cities and suburbs.

Yes, winter is here again, with its short days, slower rhythms, cold nights . . . and, at long last, snow. It’s good to see it back.

A version of this essay was published as “Winter Is Back, and It’s Good To See” in my monthly op-ed column for the Joliet Herald-News on 19 January 2012. Download a pdf of Pilcher Park’s Trails to see the park’s extensive trail network for hiking and nature exploration. See more photos of Hickory Creek and Pilcher Park here.

The “Development” of Teale Woods in Joliet: A Personal Critique

Teale Woods, winter 2011 (M. Bryson)

A year and a half ago, I wrote an op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News (reprinted later on this blog) about an obscure tract of urban forest in Joliet called Teale Woods. Heretofore an overgrown and litter-strewn city woodland, the place nevertheless possessed an air of mystery and enchantment.

No doubt my fascination with this humble woodland was partly due to its namesake, Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980), a Joliet native and one of America’s foremost nature writers and photographers during the 20th century. A skilled naturalist and brilliant observer of plants, animals, and human nature alike, Teale’s eloquent descriptions of the natural world included not just remote wilderness areas, but everyday landscapes familiar to us all — backyards, farms, even urban spaces.

Edwin Way Teale
Edwin Way Teale

I like to think Teale would’ve found much here to appreciate and value. He had a knack of seeing wonderful things — whether a locally rare bird species making its spring migration, or a beautifully-patterned lichen on the rough bark of an oak tree. Such treasures abound if we take the time to notice them, even in ecologically compromised patches of urban nature.

Not long after my March 2010 article appeared, the Will County Forest Preserve District revealed a Preserve Improvement and Management Plan (pdf) to convert Teale Woods into a 15-acre recreational space, and then solicited public input on their ideas. I was one of seven people to provide written comments that summer, and I urged the WCFPD to avoid over-developing the site and keep the woodland as natural in appearance as possible, in accordance with the spirit of conservation espoused by Teale in his decades of writing about and advocating on behalf of the environment. This fall, the Forest Preserve completed $100,905.50 worth of work building a 0.3-mile paved trail and clearing a large lawn area at the trail head. It’s fair to say, then, that I have a vested interest in the results of these labors.

I should emphasize at this point that I unequivocally support the Forest Preserve’s untiring efforts in acquiring open space, providing outdoor recreation opportunities, educating citizens, and restoring native ecosystems. The WCFPD is the driving force for environmental conservation in Will County as well as a major contributor to its citizens’ quality of life. I have deep respect and sincere appreciation for the work of the Forest Preserve and the many preserve units my family and I visit and enjoy regularly.

Nevertheless, I feel that the development of Teale Woods has missed the mark.

In place of the narrow footpath that once afforded intimacy with the woods is a winding stretch of 10-foot-wide pavement that resembles a road more than a trail. Such an “improvement” feels like overkill within such a small tract of land, where scale is important and every square yard of green space counts.

Bench and path at Teale Woods (M. Bryson)

While it’s supposed to be accessible, parts of the path are so steeply sloped that it’s frankly hard to imagine a person in a non-motorized wheelchair being able to traverse it comfortably. Nor is the path well-suited for biking, for unlike many other preserve trails elsewhere in Will County the trail is extremely short (just a third of a mile) and goes literally nowhere: from the Center/Theodore intersection down to traffic-choked Route 53/Broadway, well north of the existing trail segment within Joliet’s Broadway Greenway. The contrast of this stubby and isolated trail with the continuous trail networks throughout the Rock Run and Theodore Marsh preserves on the far West Side is striking, to say the least.

Just as disappointing is the unattractive and poorly-placed bench on an incongruous concrete pad near the public access at Theodore and Center Streets. Marooned within an enlarged lawn area that was bulldozed of shrubs and small trees, this uninviting “rest stop” has a decidedly uninspiring view of a garbage can and the blacktopped path.

Bench and grassy meadow at Teale Woods, November 2011 (M. Bryson)

The cleared meadow may have been populated formerly by scrubby non-native plants of little ecological value, but I’m not sure the open space as currently conceived is much better. What’s lost now is the visual buffer the imperfect woods provided along busy Theodore Street, which also effectively shielded the preserve from nearby traffic noise. Now the clearing merely feels exposed and lonely, and of dubious value as a recreational space. For what? one is inspired to ask. Instead, I’d advocate using this area as a prairie restoration site, as has been done on many other Preserve holdings.

Teale Woods is still a valuable green space in the heart of Joliet’s urban core. But in sacrificing modest and aesthetically-sensitive design for the dubious recreational values of a road-like trail and a turfgrass field, its stewards have compromised the forest’s fundamental character.

The old path at Teale Woods, winter 2011 (M. Bryson)

I’m not exactly sure what Edwin Way Teale would think of the woods and the changes that have occurred these last few months. But I seriously doubt he’d be much impressed.

This is a revised and expanded version of my regular op-ed column that appears today as “Improvements” Strip Forest of Its Greenery (Sunday 18 December 2011) in the Joliet Herald-News. More information on the Will Country Forest Preserve District’s development plan for Teale Woods can be found here. You can view some photos of the preserve’s transformation and its finished state from this fall.

Who’s Funnier — Jerry Seinfeld or the Joliet City Council?

Two weeks ago my wife and I took a rare break from our humdrum lives as sleep-deprived and chore-obsessed parents of small children, and indulged ourselves in a night’s entertainment at Joliet’s historic Rialto Theatre, which for one glorious and side-splittingly hilarious evening hosted comedian Jerry Seinfeld for two high-profile performances.

The Rialto Theatre, Joliet IL, c. the late 1920s (Photo: Legends of America)

When tickets for Seinfeld’s appearance went on sale several weeks ago, the town buzzed with excitement at the prospect of the wise-cracking New Yorker gracing my hometown’s most fabulous stage. I should know, since I stood in line mighty early to get fourth row tickets for my wife’s birthday present.

Such was the overwhelming demand for the show that later that day a second performance was announced — and its tickets sold like hot cakes, too. On performance night, the Rialto brought well over 3,500 people into downtown Joliet ready to have some laughs and spend money — a fact to be noted with some measure of respect.

I should elaborate. Random readers from outside the area might harbor the mistaken impression that as the fourth-largest Illinois metropolis, Joliet possesses a vibrant downtown nightlife scene.

Shockingly, though, this is not the case. As we natives well know, about the most glitz and glamour you’ll get downtown on non-Rialto performance nights is the flashing blue light emanating in a menacing Big Brother-like fashion from the Homeland Security cameras mounted on buildings throughout the city’s central district.

That’s why we need people like Seinfeld to come to town occasionally, jazz up the scene, and make us forget temporarily that we live in such a sleepy, quiet, middle of the road, surveillance-camera-infested place. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But now that the raucous laughter from Seinfeld’s routine has died down, we should contemplate something far less funny. With about $7 million more in reserves within the overall 2012 budget projections than previously estimated during the summer, the City Council still cut $100,000 of its support for the Rialto and $166,000 more from other local arts organizations — specifically, the Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park (which hosts community theater and other events at its indoor auditorium and outdoor stage) and the Joliet Area Historical Museum.

Consider that hundreds, if not thousands, of Rialto patrons that night went out to dinner (and/or to the casino) before or after the shows and fed generous wads of their hard-earned money to the local economy. I can testify that we enjoyed a phenomenal meal at a downtown establishment that was absolutely hopping during “wave two” of Rialto-stimulated business.

The auditorium at the Rialto (Photo: Legends of America)

Consider that instead of mocking our nightlife-challenged burg, Seinfeld took pains to declare sincerely that the Rialto is one of the most beautiful and glorious performance venues he has ever played. (And does anyone seriously think he would come to Joliet were the Rialto not here?)

Finally, consider which is funnier: a Jerry Seinfeld stand-up comedy performance, or the three-ring circus of Joliet’s ongoing 2012 budget deliberations?

This is a revised version of my regular op-ed column that appeared as “Lack of Support for Rialto No Laughing Matter” in the 10 November 2011 issue of the Joliet Herald-News (p15). The Joliet City Council continues to work on the 2012 budget, and as of Wednesday, Nov. 9th, was considering a forensic audit going back twenty years.

Can Joliet Afford To Neglect the Arts?

After a summer of disconcerting inaction on Joliet’s $23 million shortfall for 2012, budget deliberations in Joliet’s City Hall have really heated up.

Mayor Tom Giarrante’s proposed plan combines tax hikes, service cuts, pension payment restructuring, and planned negotiations with employee unions as a means of bringing down expenditures; and the Council, much to the delight of Joliet residents, has voted to raise sales and utility taxes in order to generate more revenue.

Getting an inordinate amount of attention in the local press as well as in Council deliberations, though, are potential cuts to Joliet’s less-than-lavish support of the Rialto Square Theater, the Joliet Area Historical Museum, and Bicentennial Park. The mayor proposes relatively modest decreases for these important cultural institutions, while District 1 Councilman Larry Hug advocates slashing city support entirely.

Hug’s attitude is hardly surprising. Whenever economic times get tough, public expenditures on the arts always come under the gun. But the reasoning behind these potential cutbacks is both mathematically misguided and philosophically impoverished.

Let’s do the math first. The mayor’s proposed cuts to the above arts organizations total $266,000 — less than two percent of the city’s $17 million gap in operating expenses. Giarrante’s strategy here is plainly symbolic: while such reductions are admittedly ineffectual because they’re so small, they demonstrate his willingness to make tough decisions across the board.

Ironically, the draconian “cut everything” approach espoused by Hug would not generate all that many savings, either, and could potentially hurt the local economy. Take the Rialto: eliminating its $700,000 of city support trims only four percent from that $17 million shortfall. Yet that would be potentially devastating to the Rialto’s always precarious operating budget, and thus jeopardize the $7.5 million of local economic activity it generates annually.

But let’s also think beyond mere numbers. What would Joliet be like without Bicentennial Park’s music concerts, dramatic productions, and cultural festivals? Without the rich perspective on the our area’s culture and history provided by the much-lauded Historical Museum?

How would the otherwise depressing and downtrodden downtown landscape look without the glitz, energy, and architectural pizazz of the iconic Rialto, Joliet’s only serious venue for nationally-renowned live entertainment?

Oh, sure, life would go on. The garbage would be picked up (on the street, not in the alley), sewage would be processed (in most neighborhoods, anyway, though not necessarily the Ridgewood area on the city’s East Side), and the lights would stay on in City Hall. But a culturally-impoverished existence in which the arts are devalued and unfunded is neither desirable nor acceptable in a city of our size and aspirations.

The question we should be asking, then, is not how much we can slash and burn the already paltry public support of our cornerstone arts organizations and cherished cultural institutions. It’s rather this: what kind of city do we want to live in?

This article was published in the Wednesday, 5 October 2011 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. Information about Joliet’s 2012 budget can be accessed at the city’s official website, which lists links to various budget reports and proposals.

From the City to the Country: Visiting the Will County Fair

Late every August, my family performs a sacred ritual. We get up early, eat a stout breakfast, then drive east from our urban homestead in Joliet out into the countryside. Our destination: Peotone, Illinois — home of the utterly splendid Will County Fair.

From the vantage point of our little bungalow on Joliet’s near-West Side, just getting to the fair is half the fun. We always cut through downtown Joliet, then take country roads out toward Peotone. Minutes after threading our way through the most urbanized part of Will County, we’re whizzing by fields and farms on the outskirts of the Big City. We slow down, open the car windows, breath in the fresh country air, and take in the view of a huge expanse of blue sky.

Though big as the world to a child’s eye, the Will County Fair is a small and wholesome event that looks and feels like a journey back in time. It features all the classic Midwestern fair elements — deep-fried elephant ears, carnival rides, a baby contest, live music, a rodeo, tractor pulls, magic shows, a demolition derby — without the aggressively seedy atmosphere created by over-the-hill 80s rock bands or, worse yet, grandstanding politicians.

In the Swine Barn — that’s some pig!

Best of all, Will County’s fair puts agriculture front and center, as it should be. From the fairground’s main parking lot, you can buy your admission ticket and walk right into the Swine Barn — an arrangement both excellent and deeply symbolic.

The Will County Fair is where city kids like our two girls can get up close and personal with goats, chickens, dairy cows, beef cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, ponies, turkeys, geese, and pigeons — wonderful livestock all.

Visiting with the goats

Airy old barns dominate half the fairgrounds, and we strolled through the long corridors of stalls for several hours to see the animals, scratch their heads, thump their bellies, take in the pleasantly pungent smell of manure, and chat with the farm kids who tend these beasts with skill and devotion. This is 100% fun, and the type of education you can’t get in school or from a book. A few years ago our then 40-pound daughter Lily got to hop into a farmer’s hog pen to help herd several 250-pound swine through the barn to get their baths. She slapped those hogs on their muscled rumps and barked out “Away, pig!” — and by golly, they moved.

And the food? Boy, oh boy. We ate burgers and fries from the 4-H stand run by an enthusiastic squadron of teenagers, portabella mushroom sandwiches and marinated veggies expertly grilled by Farmer John Moore of Wind N’ Oaks Farm, ice cream from the Peotone United Methodist Church ladies, and some sinfully delicious corn dogs.

I wonder how many city folk head to Peotone each year to connect with Will County’s still-thriving but increasingly pressured rural heritage. Year after year our civic leaders race to pave over our fertile farmland according to the economic gospel of “development.” From the vantage point of the county fairgrounds, though, the foolhardy and state-sanctioned land grab called the Peotone Airport looms as an exquisitely ironic example of misguided priorities.

Maybe more of our urban and suburban citizens, and especially our politicians, should spend some quality time in the livestock barns visiting with farmers and the 4-H kids who live and work on our county’s farms. It might provide some much-needed perspective on balancing economic development with the preservation of rural culture.

The only bad thing about the 108th Will County Fair? Having to leave. We’re already looking forward to next year.

A print version of this essay was published on Sunday, 4 September 2011, as “County Fair a Crucial Connection,” my monthly op-ed piece in the Joliet Herald-News, p26. Also see the online version here.

Fox in the City

This morning in Joliet while biking to the city’s public library, I had the 2nd urban fox sighting of my life. The first dated back to my years in Chicago, when once in the early 2000s while driving home after teaching a night class, I saw a red fox (Vulpes vulpes) cross Lawrence Avenue, right along the Chicago River’s North Branch.

Today I was biking on a quiet side street, listening to the gentle throb of the early August cicadas, when a very slight rustling on my right caught my ear.

Photo by Dan Walters (AKA Images)

I kept pedaling but turned, and saw a beautiful adult red fox lope through a front yard, then turn down a grassy alley. I never made eye contact, as the encounter lasted all of five seconds — but got a good look at this splendid creature’s color and form, especially the distinctive tail.

It’s good to know that there’s at least one fox on the prowl on Joliet’s West Side. (For you locals, this was on Mason Avenue, between Midland and Larkin Avenues — an area of ranch houses and ample, though not huge, yards.) For more reflections on the presence of foxes in urban environments, see this 2009 article from Chicago Wilderness.

Teale Woods in Joliet: Urban Nature Restoration

The announcement that the Forest Preserve District of Will County has begun work on developing a short trail through Teale Woods, a small nature preserve near where I live in Joliet, Illinois, got me thinking about this little essay I wrote about that patch of urban nature for the Joliet Herald-News back in March of 2010.

The advent of spring last week inspired me to visit one of my favorite quiet corners of Joliet — a place where time slows down and wild nature flourishes amidst the paved-over, gritty landscape of concrete, traffic noise, and hustling people.

My destination was Teale Woods, a 15-acre woodland along Theodore and Center Streets on Joliet’s near northwest side. With only one low-profile sign marking its existence as Will County Forest Preserve property, Teale Woods is still undeveloped and without official public access; but a couple of informal trails cut through the woodland and afford a quiet route away from the tumult of Theodore Street’s traffic.

This humble urban sanctuary is emblematic of wild spaces that exist, and sometimes flourish, against all odds within the built landscape of our cities. Homes, businesses, and busy roads are only steps away. The thoughtless litter of humans, newly revealed from the recent melting of winter’s snow cover, distracts the eye and disturbs the spirit.

Nevertheless, these scrappy, imperfect woods provide a natural haven where one can hear the plaintive tones of a white-throated sparrow and study the rugged form of a downed oak.

I suspect very few people in Joliet today know this place’s namesake, Edwin Way Teale. Born in 1899 in Joliet, Teale’s love of and fascination with nature were stoked in his formative years during visits to his grandparents’ farm near the Indiana Dunes. He later became one of the most celebrated American nature writers and photographers of the 20th century.

One of Teale’s most admired books was North with the Spring (1951), which chronicles a 17,000-mile journey following and celebrating the season’s arrival throughout the eastern US. While Teale visits several famous landscapes along the way, he also describes many virtually unknown spots of no particular significance — except that they provided a place for him to encounter a lively insect, find a native wildflower, or admire an old tree.

I like to think that Teale Woods in Joliet — about as low-profile and neglected as a nature preserve can get — is been one of those places he would’ve cherished.

The next time I visit the woods, I’ll pause a moment to reflect on Edwin Way Teale’s immeasurable impact upon Americans’ growing interest in preserving wild nature, even in cities. Then, I’ll grab my work gloves and trash bag, and get down to work picking up some litter.

This essay was published as “Teale Woods Hidden Joliet Gem” on 25 March 2010 in the Joliet Herald-News, p20. A few month’s after the article’s appearance, the Will County Forest Preserve District held public hearings on planned future developments of Teale Woods. The WCFPD plans to start restoring the woodland in 2011.

Time To Lock Down on Joliet Budget Talks

Ever since last April’s elections, I’ve been waiting for some blockbuster news to come out of City Hall in downtown Joliet. Now it’s late July, and though the outside temperature has been in the 90s, things are mighty cool in the city’s governmental chambers. So cool, in fact, one might think all’s well in the land of casinos, racetracks, and intermodal shipping container transfer centers.

But this deafening silence from Joliet’s leadership worries me a tad. I can’t help but wonder what we’ve been doing about that teensy little $27 million budget deficit projection for 2012.

Sure, there’s been some encouraging news from other quarters. Just last week Joliet scored a $820,000 grant from the Illinois EPA for upgrading its sewage infrastructure in order to significantly reduce the amount of untreated waste we routinely dump into the Des Plaines River. As an enthusiastic proponent of minimizing combined sewage overflow events, I’m sincerely impressed.

Also laudable is State Senator Wilhelmi’s recent tour of the Joliet Correctional Facility with a bevy of high-ranking state officials, an effort to underscore the need for preserving one of Joliet’s key historical and architectural assets. It’s possible to imagine Joliet someday making some tourism industry hay, Alcatraz-style, from its uneasy international reputation as a prison town.

The old Joliet Prison, shuttered since 2002 (photo courtesy of Joliet Herald-News)

There’s only one little hitch: raising the tens of millions necessary to secure and restore the monumental but crumbling limestone structure. By comparison, breaking out of jail is child’s play.

The subject of money leads me back to that $27 million deficit looming in front of us.

Again, it’s been almost four months since the April election. Our fiscal clock is ticking very loudly. Where is the budget crisis mitigation plan from our City Council? What is Mayor Giarrante doing to lead this critical effort?

I have a couple of friendly suggestions for City Manager Tom Thanas, whose job surely must be one of the most stressful in Will County. First, reassign the brilliant technocrat who wrote that blockbuster EPA wastewater grant to plugging the leaks in the city’s budget, which surely could use some re-engineering.

Secondly, get in touch with Senator Wilhelmi and see if you can hold a special budget meeting in the old Joliet Prison, where the peeling paint, rusting cell bars, and weed-filled exercise yards are evocative symbols of neglect and decay — and a grim foreshadowing of the city’s future if we cannot put our fiscal house in order.

Perhaps such a setting will impart the proper sense of seriousness and urgency the situation demands. And if some of Joliet’s well-compensated police officers could patrol the grounds to make sure that no Councilman or Councilwoman escapes until an initial plan is hammered out, all the better.

This column was written as an op-ed piece for the Joliet Herald-News‘ 29 July 2011 edition and published as “When Will Joliet Officials Deal with $27 Million Deficit?“. After my column’s deadline last week, HN reporter Bob Okon wrote on July 27th that the Joliet City Council had again rescheduled its summer budget meeting for Monday, August 1st, which is a regularly-scheduled “pre-council” meeting that has a public comment period scheduled at the end. Read HN reporter Cindy Cain’s coverage of that meeting, which announced that the projected deficit for 2012 isnow $23 million and floats various possibilities for reducing the city’s expenditures.

The Council’s regular meetings are on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of each month at 6:30pm. For more information, check the City of Joliet’s website.