Stony Island Avenue, long treated as a fast way to cut through the South Side, is being reimagined as the main event. A city-commissioned panel is pitching a plan to turn the corridor from E. 56th to E. 79th streets into a South Shore hub for retail, entertainment, tourism and higher education, with the street redesigned to serve neighborhood life instead of rush-hour traffic.
The vision, laid out by an Urban Land Institute Chicago technical assistance panel convened at the request of the city’s Department of Planning and Development, would tighten travel lanes and carve out more room for people on foot and on bikes, linking storefronts, parks and institutions along the stretch, according to ULI Chicago. The 11-member group toured the avenue and met with residents, property owners and civic leaders during a two-day session in January before sketching out its recommendations.
Panel’s recommendations
At a public meeting in South Shore, panelists rolled out a package of design and policy ideas meant to turn Stony Island into a true hub-and-spoke spine, as reported by Block Club Chicago. That includes encouraging “missing-middle” housing, recruiting smaller local developers, offering repair and maintenance loans to owner-occupants and creating a new coordinating body so the work does not happen in silos.
The transportation side of the wish list is just as ambitious. The panel suggested redesigning Stony Island between 67th and 79th streets to slim down roadway widths, add bike lanes and widen sidewalks, exploring bus rapid transit, studying whether the Green Line could be rebuilt past Cottage Grove, and even shifting control of Stony Island south of 67th from the state to the city’s transportation department, according to Block Club Chicago…