Kimball Station Area Curb and Mobility Study recommends infrastructure improvements around Albany Park L stop

In July, the Kimball Station Area Curb and Mobility Study was completed as part of the RTA’s Community Planning program. The study addresses the CTA Brown Line’s Kimball station area in the Albany Park neighborhood, defined by Lawrence Avenue from St. Louis to Spaulding avenues and Kimball Avenue from Ainslie Street to Wilson Avenue.

The station is a key transportation hub for Chicago’s Northwest Side and the Albany Park community. Nearly 10,000 transit riders either pass through the station or use a bus in the area on an average weekday. Thousands more walk, travel by bicycle, and drive through the area each day—not to mention business deliveries, on-demand package and food deliveries, and parking. And while modes vary, all these users rely on one constrained resource at some point in their journey—the curb. The study aims to accommodate these many competing needs while making transit access the priority and was guided by community and stakeholder engagement and informed by data.

RTA’s Community Planning program provides funding and technical assistance to local governments to help foster growth of sustainable, equitable, walkable, and transit-friendly communities. This curb and mobility study kicked off in spring 2023 and is the first of its kind for the RTA. Funding for the project was split between RTA and the Chicago Department of Planning and Development (DPD) with close collaboration from the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), CTA, the 33rd Ward Office, and the North River Commission (NRC).

Recommendations

The study identifies 22 recommendations to enhance safety, mobility, accessibility, the streetscape and public space, and the success of local businesses. It also presents a strategy for how to pay for and complete the recommendations, highlighting opportunities for both quick wins and long-term success. Key recommendation themes include:

Improve pedestrian safety by reducing crossing distances, adding raised crosswalks or intersections, improving lighting, and implementing traffic calming interventions, which reduce the risk of injury and death and encourage travel by foot or bike.

Enhance streetscape and public space by widening sidewalks where feasible, reclaiming some street parking for expanded public space to support local businesses, developing a public plaza long desired by the community, enhancing landscaping, improving lighting, and exploring options to add art and color. These interventions aim to provide safe and enjoyable spaces for community gatherings and improve the experience of traveling through the area.

Improve bicycle safety with short-term interventions that build the foundation for more comprehensive bicycle infrastructure upgrades in the study area.

Improve bus waiting areas by expanding sidewalks and adding bus shelters at bus stops where feasible. These interventions are intended to relieve existing crowding at bus stops, which slows the bus boarding process and creates safety issues when pedestrians are forced to walk into the street to avoid large crowds of waiting passengers.

Keep buses moving by enhancing pavement markings to emphasize the requirement to keep bus stops clear of other vehicles and installing bus stop bump outs at select stops to reduce time spent at each stop. Transit Signal Priority and bus queue jumps are also recommended at several intersections in the study area. These interventions are key to improve current bus travel speed and on-time performance in the area, which both trail the system average.

Improve vehicle pick-ups and drop-offs by streamlining existing curb regulations, better accommodating school pick-ups/drop-offs, and adding a dedicated vehicle pick-up/drop-off area at the Kimball station.

Right-size existing parking by reallocating currently underutilized street parking to expand and enhance public space, create dedicated pick-up/drop-off areas, improve pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and widen sidewalks.

Equitable Community engagement was at the core of the planning process was essential to identifying the specific needs and desires of residents and allowing for the inclusion of diverse cultural perspectives.

Initial input was gathered from station area users on how they get around the study area and ideas for improvements. The planning team did a walk-through of the area, met with community focus groups comprising student leaders and Albany Park residents, attended popular community events, engaged the business community through door-to-door outreach, and collected more than 200 responses to an online survey.

The planning team then gathered community feedback on recommendations for the station area. Transit riders were also engaged directly at the station, Spanish and youth roundtables were hosted, and more than 500 responses to a new online survey were collected.

Read the complete Kimball Station Area Curb and Mobility Study on RTAMS, the RTA’s mapping and statistics website.