Speak Your Mind on RU’s New Website

Roosevelt has just launched a new media campaign called “Speak Your Mind” that features a highly interactive “microsite” that’s really more like an online discussion course than a typical media ad. In fact, it’s better than a regular course, because it’s designed so that viewers can post comments and engage in dialogue with several RU professors on a range of critical topics of the day, from housing to education to media to biotechnology to the environment to the state of the US economy.

Each of the topics within the site features one of several RU academic departments. The Sustainability Studies program here at RU is, I’m happy to report, one of those featured programs — and yours truly is the discussion monitor on the topic of Green Jobs: the green economy’s present state and future prospects. I encourage folks to visit the site, look around, and post a comment if you are so moved. Those of you who are SUST majors or who have taken a SUST class at RU will likely have very valuable thoughts and questions to contribute! Your participation can help connect RU to the general public in this important social media outreach campaign.

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.

Undergrad Research Opportunities at the Field Museum

This summer the Field Museum of Natural History here in the Chicago is offering several Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) fellowships for summer research in the biological sciences. This is a unique and valuable opportunity to do paid (!) summer research in one of the most important natural history research institutions in the world. Please see this website for more information, and note the upcoming deadline of March 15th for applications.

As an undergraduate biology major at Illinois Wesleyan University in the 1980s, I applied for and received two REU summer fellowships. Not only did I earn a generous 3-month stipend and learn a tremendous amount about how science is done in the lab and out in the field, but as I look back on those experiences I now realize how much they helped shape my future career direction and attitudes about science and nature.

For more information beyond the above, please contact Sustainability Studies Prof. Julian Kerbis Peterhans (jkerbis@fieldmuseum.org and 312-665-7758), who has taught SUST 330 Biodiversity and BIOL Museum Internship classes at the FMNH. Minority and non-traditional students are particularly encouraged to apply.

A Good Week for Chicago

Environmental news is rarely good. More often it’s disconcerting . . . depressing . . . or highly disturbing. This week, it’s a breath of fresh air (literally) to get some phenomenal news about the near-future prospects for air and water resources here in Chicago.

As Michael Hawthorne, environmental reporter for the Chicago Tribune, writes this week, the notorious and heavily-polluting Fisk and Crawford coal-powered generating stations will be shut down earlier than projected by their owner, Midwest Generation. While the economic infeasibility of upgrading the plant’s pollution controls is the direct reason, there is no doubt that continued pressure from local environmental activists in the Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods as well as from key Chicago politicians (including Joe Moore of the 49th ward and Mayor Emanuel) were key drivers in this decision.

As if that weren’t cause enough for joy, we also learn today that the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District has significantly reduced the projected expense of implementing final-stage disinfection processes for wastewater effluent that is released into the Chicago Area Waterway System. Installing these technologies will be done in budget rather than with a Cook County tax hike.

Read Hawthorne’s excellent report on what has become a hot water topic in Chicago, and find out why a change of leadership is sometimes all it takes to get things moving in a dramatically different, and positive, direction.

The Peotone Airport’s Ongoing Tragicomedy

Thank goodness for the intransigence and political buffoonery of our Illinois public officials. Without their ceaseless bickering, the ill-fated and monumentally stupid Great Imaginary Airport project envisioned near Peotone might actually get off the ground.

As it is, the GIA — known variously as the South Suburban Airport (its IDOT-sanctioned title) and the Abraham Lincoln National Airport (Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s grandiose appellation) — exists only in the misguided minds of transportation technocrats and Pollyannaish politicians.

Farmland near Peotone, IL -- the proposed site of the Great Imaginary Airport (photo: Chicago Tribune)

This bizarre state of affairs stems, in part, from our elected leaders having serious control issues. Ever since I began writing about the GIA fiasco in 2007, debate has raged about who gets to sit on the airport’s board, what to call the facility (see above), and which paint colors should adorn the terminal’s bathroom walls.

What gets overlooked in this petty drama are two things far more important and disturbing: (1) the grand fiscal folly of a bankrupt state spending untold millions to construct an airport 40 miles from Chicago’s Loop that no commercial airline wants; and (2) the grotesque social injustice of government land grabs perpetrated against law-abiding, tax-paying rural landowners within the phantom airport’s ghostly footprint.

The GIA is so far from physical realization that even its most ardent supporters have no idea when it might actually be built. Due to the project’s incompetent political sponsorship thus far, final FAA approval is probably still years away and far from guaranteed. At least I hope so.

Despite those damning facts — and the stark economic reality that Illinois is billions of dollars in the red and cannot even pay its regular bills as required by law — Governor Quinn continues to pledge $100 million of state money for additional land acquisition for the GIA.

That’s not counting the money we’ve already blown. To date, IDOT has spent $34,014,383 and change (of taxpayer funds) acquiring 2,471 acres of prime Will County farmland surrounded by the small towns of Peotone, Beecher, and Monee. But since thousands of acres remain in private hands within the GIA’s footprint, and with land prices at historic lows, IDOT officials have stepped up the pressure on unwilling sellers by commencing formal condemnation proceedings.

Vivian and Willis Bramstaedt at their home outside of Beecher, IL, where they've lived for 50 years (photo: David Pierini/Chicago Tribune)

This means that folks like Vivian and Willis Bramstaedt, who had hoped to retire on their farm near Beecher as they enter their sunset years, are being taken to court and will have their land condemned. What the State wants, the State gets.

“We got the letter sometime late in the fall,” Vivian told me the other day after I gave her a call. “I’ve no doubt in my mind the state will take our land. There’s nothing we can do. It’s just a matter of time now.”

I asked Vivian how people in Beecher felt about the GIA. “Some support it, because they think it will be an economic boost,” she admitted. “But a lot oppose it. The community is split, I suppose. And the thing is, most people can’t even think about it anymore. They’ve had the airport hanging over their heads for so long, they seem to have become numb.”

I ask you this: why is Illinois spending millions of dollars it doesn’t have to take citizens like the Bramstaedts to court and condemn their property? How can such a thing be tolerated by my fellow citizens in the Land of Lincoln? And why don’t any of our elected representatives have the backbone to stand up and state the truth about the monumental waste and injustice of Peotone’s Great Imaginary Airport?

A version of this essay appears as my monthly op-ed column (“Great Imaginary Airport a Boondoggle for Illinois“) in the 23 Feb 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. For information about the airport’s plan, land acquisition data, maps, documents for FAA reviews, etc., see the official IDOT website.

And for additional commentary, check out my previous columns from the Herald-News about the Peotone Airport archived on this site.

The Airport that Just Won’t Die

Like a cold sore or a nasty case of bronchitis, the Great Imaginary Airport near Peotone just won’t go away. Not even with a prescription.

After many months of keeping a low profile, the Illinois Department of Transportation made a news splash in the summer of 2010 by releasing a 194-page report about its pet project to the FAA. It contains numerous rosy projections about future passenger and freight traffic demands meant to justify the airport’s construction.

Buried within its reams of statistics and turgid technical prose, however, was this telling passage on page 10: “The current economic downtown, the most serious since the Great Depression, is a challenge to the aviation industry.  . . . This forecast environment is precarious and it justifies caution in revisiting the assumptions and forecasts for an airport, particularly a new one.” No kidding!

What’s really “precarious,” though, is the state’s ethical position in using any means necessary to acquire private property for the initial build-out of an airport that may never be approved, let alone completed. And with Illinois billions of dollars in the red, it makes zero sense to throw hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars away on such a pathetically misguided boondoggle.

Yet that’s precisely what we’re doing. Ever since IDOT was given the power of eminent domain by the state in 2002, it’s been buying up land in the imaginary airport’s footprint as fast as an Illinois hog gulping his slops. As of July 2010, nearly $33 million have been spent acquiring 2,429 acres of land from (mostly) willing sellers.

Now, with the price of land bottoming out, IDOT is flexing its muscles to begin eminent domain proceedings against citizens with no interest in selling, like Willis and Vivian Bramstaedt, an elderly couple who had intended to retire on their Beecher property.

The Bramstaedts and others are in a real pickle: if they cave in to IDOT’s pressure to sell, they’re going to get far less for their property than they would’ve a few years ago. If they refuse to deal, they’ll have to wage a hopelessly expensive court fight against the state’s condemnation proceedings .

This situation is beyond grotesque. Surely the naked exercise of power in wresting land from law-abiding rural citizens against their will for a project of dubious merit is unjust. The fact that it is permissible under state law does not make it right.

Let’s call it for what it is, then: highway robbery.

This essay appeared as my regular monthly op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News on 8 July 2010. It was the fourth 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.

As of Dec. 31, 2010, the State continued to earmark millions of dollars for the purchase of land in the Peotone area, and IDOT has submitted more documents to the FAA for that agency’s review. The latter still had not approved the airport project.

Will the Peotone Airport Ever Fly? Let’s Hope Not

This is a tale of two airports — one real, the other imaginary — located in the peaceful Will County countryside near the small town of Peotone.

The real one used to be an obscure outpost called Sanger Field. It’s now widely known as Bult Field after being purchased in 2006 by Jim Bult, a Monee businessman who named the airport after himself, which I think is fine.

Jim Bult, left, at his airport near Monee, IL, c. 2007 (photo: Schwiess Doors, Inc)

The imaginary one doesn’t have an official name yet, because it doesn’t exist except in the minds of state planners and local politicians, who insist that the phantom airport will be the greatest economic engine the south suburbs have ever seen. It does have several candidates for names, though, including the geographically precise South Suburban Airport; the historically pretentious Abraham Lincoln National Airport; and the delightfully mysterious Great Imaginary Airport (GIA), which I made up.

Bult Field near Monee, IL (photo: FlightAware)

Jim Bult has invested a lot of his own money, $37 million, in Bult Field because, as he told the Herald News in 2009, “I just want a quality runway and hangar here.” As far as I know, Mr. Bult has not asked Illinois taxpayers to subsidize his airport project or future planned upgrades.

In contrast, George Ryan (former Illinois governor and convicted criminal) and Rod Blagojevich (recently impeached Illinois governor and currently under indictment for crimes too numerous to list here) have spent $24 million of taxpayer money to purchase 1,951 acres of land (as of April 2009) and millions more on environmental impact statements, engineering studies, and marketing efforts for an airport that doesn’t exist.

The irony of all this? The real airport, Bult Field, sits right next to where the GIA might someday be; so close, in fact, that the state will probably have to buy Mr. Bult out to avoid airspace conflicts and otherwise looking extremely silly. That’s OK, though, because our current governor, Pat Quinn, recently pledged to spend $100 million (of taxpayer money, I assume) to acquire 3,275 more acres of prime Will County farmland for the project.

Um, I’m a little confused. Isn’t our state billions of dollars in the red? Is it wise to spend $100 million acquiring land for an airport that may never be built, when one right next door, a private airport financed by one man, already exists?

With entertainment like this, who needs to go to the movies? Just head out toward Peotone, and watch the Tale of Two Airports unfold.

This essay appeared as my regular monthly op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News on 9 April 2009. It was the third 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. For a map of the Peotone Airport land area that shows the location of Bult Field within the GIA’s footprint, check out the link below.

Peotone Airport Land Acquisition Status Map – Feb 2012 (pdf)

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.

The Peotone Airport: Grab Land First, Ask Later

The ongoing follies in the Peotone Airport Saga have critics cheering and supporters groaning.

IDOT and Governor Blagojevich submitted two plans for Peotone to the FAA for review, hoping that one would be approved. This cover-all-the-bases approach incorporated the competing visions of the airport’s Congressional cheerleaders, Jerry Weller (remember him?) and Jesse Jackson, Jr., who disagree on everything from the facility’s name to the bathroom colors.

The people at the FAA sighed, shook their heads, and sent back the proposals stamped “Make Up Your Minds,” thus creating a potential delay of months, if not years, for the necessary federal go-ahead.

But this comical news has overshadowed a downright sober issue: government-sponsored intimidation of law-abiding citizens in eastern Will County who own land in the path of the bulldozers. So far, the state has spent over 23 million taxpayer dollars purchasing about 1,900 acres of land northeast of Peotone.

After getting scolded for making aggressive phone calls to owners of the remaining 2,200 acres needed for the initial build-out, IDOT has been sending letters to landowners making it clear — in a friendly, nice-guy, Midwestern kind of way — that if they can’t reach settlement on terms of sale, the government will proceed with condemnation.

That seems reasonable, doesn’t it? After all, a wasteful, sprawling, ugly, polluting, and congestion-causing airport over 40 miles from downtown Chicago that no major airline wants is a lot more important than prime Illinois farmland, a quiet rural landscape, clean air, open space, county fairs, and the rights of individual landowners. That’s Progress in action!

Still, something just sticks in my craw about that 23 million bucks IDOT diligently has spent acquiring land. Haven’t they gotten a little ahead of themselves?

Is it just me, or have others noticed that the people in charge still haven’t decided on an official plan for the airport; still haven’t received FAA approval for that plan; still haven’t stopped arguing over who’s going to control the airport; still haven’t finished the required environmental impact studies; still haven’t gotten the backing of a single major airline; and . . . well, I hardly need go on.

Since when is it OK to take first and ask permission later? I guess things just work differently in the hallowed halls of Springfield. All I know is, that approach doesn’t jibe with my old-school Joliet upbringing. If as a teenager I had taken out my dad’s cherished ’65 Chevy for a night on the town without asking him first, well . . . you probably can imagine the unpleasant consequences. So where do our elected leaders and transportation bureaucrats get off?

Jerry, Jesse, Rod, and all your IDOT cronies — you, and this whole shameful Peotone airport fiasco, should be grounded.

This essay appeared as my regular monthly op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News on 19 February 2007. It was the first 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.

Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee Publishes Urban Nature #10

My friend and fellow urban nature admirer, Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee, recently left his home turf of Chicago to live in and explore New Orleans. But Ryan’s still creating amazing work about the City of Big Shoulders. Check out his newest edition of the online ‘zine, Urban Nature (#10). I was glad to provide a bit of introductory text to two of the photo essays therein: “The Blizzard” and “While Wandering: Chicago.”

The photo above is from “The Blizzard,” and depicts the Bloomingdale Trail, a proposed elevated rails-to-trails parkland project on Chicago’s North Side. (I mentioned the trail in this blog essay on urban nature published last year.)