Cubs Release Wrigley-Area Traffic/Parking Study

One of the things the Cubs agreed to do as part of the deal to renovate Wrigley Field was to order up a study of traffic congestion and parking in the area around Wrigley, to see what improvements could be made. The study's now been released and Danny Ecker of Crain's Chicago Business has a report that includes a summary of some of the key recommendations:

• Installing new traffic lights on Clark Street at Waveland Avenue, School Street and Roscoe Avenue

• Adding a new interconnected traffic light system on Clark between Belmont Avenue and Irving Park Road, essentially improving the way all those lights work together

• Encouraging the team to better communicate non-driving options and parking availability to fans

There also were some targeted recommendations, such as:

• Restricting all parking after events on Clark Street between Irving Park Road and Grace Street

• Putting Chicago Transit Authority fare card machines on sidewalks immediately outside Wrigley Field

• Disallowing street peddlers and performers from setting up on public rights of way before and after games

• Having the team promote bicycle ridership through events and prices, such as a "Divvy Bikeshare Night"

Many of these are excellent ideas and will help encourage people to get to Wrigley Field via non-car options. I find the "disallowing street peddlers" point to be most interesting; that provides income for quite a number of people (T-shirt vendors and the like), but might be most aimed at prohibiting "Billy Cub" from doing his act around the ballpark.

Ecker also cites some facts from the study itself; this was one I found most interesting:

The majority of people driving to Cubs games come from the north and northwest suburbs. The ZIP codes in Chicago with the highest percentage of season-ticket holders are all close to the ballpark: 60657, 60613, 60614, 60618, 60611 and 60610. Outside city limits, the ZIP codes with the most season-ticket holders are: Northbrook (60062), Deerfield (60015), Winnetka (60093), Evanston (60201) and Park Ridge (60068).

You can read the entire study here (Scribd document).