Nov. 24--Chicago's Kennedy Expressway has been named the nation's most congested traffic bottleneck, and this should give us all pause.
How often in these fast-moving times are we told we need to slow down and take time to appreciate what we have? We should be grateful for the Kennedy, a meditative stretch of going nowhere fast.
Thoreau had Walden. We have this. Just wait. You'll find it moving eventually.
Analysis from the American Highway Users Alliance, an advocacy group, estimated delays here along a 12-mile segment of Interstate 90 -- from northwest of the Edens Expressway junction to south of the Jane Byrne Interchange -- last year cost motorists 16.9 million hours, or $418 million.
That landed the Kennedy the top spot on the alliance's list of the most chronic and costly congested U.S. roadways. It's more than twice the impact of any other U.S. jam-up cited, although the Los Angeles area dominated when it came to the number of lesser trouble spots.
The data in AHUA's new report, "Unclogging America's Arteries," are meant to bolster its call for a long-term commitment to continued federal transportation funding by showing the potential return on investing to alleviate tie-ups here and elsewhere.
And sure, that's one way to go.
But even if this were a world where politicians were half as interested in building up infrastructure as building up their own war chests, there's no easy and fast path away from Kennedy traffic.
Perhaps this is something to be embraced.
Maybe we can make it a tourist attraction, turning jams into cabbage, tout it as a wonder of the modern world.
Almost 1 million visitors annually tour Hoover Dam, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and that doesn't count those who take helicopter tours to marvel at it from above or those who simple ooh and ahh traveling across it.
But anyone who enjoys seeing how humankind and modern engineering hold back the Colorado River, slowing it from getting where all natural forces say it should urgently go, should love a Kennedy commute.
Yellowstone National Park, the National Park Service says, is host to about 4 million visits each year. Many people come specifically to see Old Faithful, a geyser that regularly spews a plume of steam and hot water.
AHUA estimates 6.3 million gallons of fuel are lost to idling vehicles on the Kennedy, noting that it believes relieving congestion would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 133 million pounds each year.
That's a lot of carbon dioxide. While an odorless, colorless gas is not nearly as visually dramatic as the hot white jet of a geyser, it can still take your breath away.
The Grand Canyon is a classic bucket-list destination. The park service says the canyon's north rim is about 10 miles from its south as the raven flies, or an arduous 25-mile hike. By car, however, the gaping chasm requires a 220-mile drive rim-to-rim that's supposed to take 5 1/2 hours.
The Kennedy can't yet match that consistently, but it took millions of years for the Grand Canyon to form, and the Kennedy is only 50-some years old.
My travels along our nation's highways and byways have not only taken me to all these places but made me an unintentional connoisseur of traffic congestion.
I have been slowed to smell the exhaust in all but two of the top 20 U.S. tie-ups on the AHUA list. I have at various times in my life regularly slogged through seven of the 30 worst bottlenecks. I never allowed myself to think the Kennedy might be No. 1, but I always knew it was a show-stopper.
So let's not waste a moment. Maybe there's government money to improve commutes here. Maybe not. In the meantime, let's crank up the tourism campaign.
"Come for the traffic. Stay for the traffic. Try and leave, but for the traffic."
Thank goodness for the Kennedy Expressway. It makes O'Hare seem fast and efficient by comparison.
Margin call: Almost three months after the Treaty of Paris was signed to end the American Revolution, the last British Red Coats withdrew from New York City 232 years ago Wednesday, an event once celebrated annually as Evacuation Day. In what's described as the war's last shot, a departing ship fired its cannon in the direction of a jeering crowd on the Staten Island shore.
philrosenthal@tribpub.com
