If you like to ride in cars that move on rails as much as we do, you’re probably excited about the trolley system that Mayor Daley wants to build in downtown Chicago. Construction wouldn’t begin until 1993, and some crucial things must happen first. More detailed engineering and design studies still have to be made, and Washington must be convinced to chip in a third of the $600 million cost. We may never see the trolley. We hope we will.
You may recall not feeling compelled. The fair stirred up mostly its critics, who thought they sniffed a boondoggle of immense proportions. “The people who were charged with portraying the idea never got it off the ground,” said McKee. “It was seen as a kind of tinselly party lacking in substance and lacking initially–I don’t think this was true at the end–enough residuals to warrant the effort.
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Howard McKee had done projects for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill all over the world before Skidmore brought him in at the end of ’83 to head up the fair’s design team. He discovered that the corps of business leaders that had done such a terrific job of selling Chicago to the Bureau of International Expositions a year earlier couldn’t sell the fair to Chicago.
“So it meant that every decision about what you made an investment in had to be supported on some basis, and the fair planners–I’m talking about Skidmore, Owings & Merrill–refused to deal with that early on. I’ve heard Bruce [Graham, then the architectural firm’s partner in charge of design] comment on this–if you could wow ’em then people will buy it. He used the word ‘vision’ repeatedly. As he saw the world’s fair, he’d create and instill a vision, then people will be dazzled by it and will realize its benefits, and then they’ll pay for it because it’s worth it. Well, I don’t know.
The fair died in 1987. At the end of that same year, McKee, now in business for himself, got a chance to see a major project done right. He was asked to help solve the public transit mess in central Chicago. Within the city’s now sprawling downtown–for example, Union Station is two miles from Water Tower Place–there is no convenient way of getting about. The Regional Transportation Authority knew something had to be done but wasn’t sure what. To avoid turf battles, the RTA didn’t ask Planning, or Public Works, or the CTA to do a study. Instead the RTA commissioned the Metropolitan Planning Council–privately funded neutral turf with expertise in transportation. A smart thing to do? we asked McKee.
There were three alternatives to look at: buses, automated guideway transit (AGT)–also known as people movers–and light rail, also known as trolleys or streetcars. The weeding-out process was ruthless. McKee saw no reason to spend time and money on an alternative once the case for it started to fall apart. AGT met an early death. It was too expensive to build, not hardy enough, and would have to cross above the el, putting its tracks up there at the fourth or fifth floor level.
McKee went on, “There began to be a realization that a solution was possible. I think as this confidence level began to occur, turf issues began to erode away.” Individual conclusions became everyone’s conclusions “because they emerged through an open process. It was apparent it wasn’t anybody selling anybody anything.”
