Safety Zones

[trainman8119]

Does anybody remember the old safety zones in the middle of the streets downtown like from the 1960's. I would imagine they had something to do with boarding buses in the same areas as the streetcars after they went by the wayside. I remember getting on buses in the middle of Washington and Madison streets, and have seen pics of the same on State Street.

I also remember the reverse flow lanes on the east-west streets downtown, which were eliminated because too many people stepped in front of buses without looking the opposite direction of the traffic.

In both cases, neither was probably a good idea, and the reverse flows didn't really do that much for streamlining the operation, did they ???

[Busjack]

I remember the islands on State and Dearborn. That was in the early 70s, long after the streetcars were gone. It didn't seem to make much sense to stand in the slush waiting for a Hyde Park or Jeffery Express bus.

On Dearborn, the buses that went south on Clark (22 Clark, 22A Wentworth, 42 Halsted Downtown, and 45 Ashland Downtown) used the islands. The buses that ran south on State (36 Broadway, 44 Wallace-Racine, 62 Archer) used the curb.

With downtown bus service maybe 1/4 of what it was in the early 70s (especially after the Orange Line opened), the islands certainly aren't needed anymore.

There used to be a safety island with a pipe rail around its back at 67th and Stony, and you had to drive to the right of the island to go to Cornell Drive. Now the split is a couple of blocks south of there.