Hospital Patient Move Means Traffic, Parking Impact In Lincoln Park Saturday
The children are moving Saturday.
The brand new Lurie Children’s Hospital in Streeterville is finally ready.
Walls are painted, lifesaving medical equipment has been installed, beds are ready, doctors and nurses are waiting.
Now it’s the children’s turn to move.
All day Saturday, Fullerton Ave. will be closed from Lincoln Ave. to Lake Shore Drive to allow ambulances to transport about 200 very ill young patients from old hospital to new.
The move will begin about 6 AM from Children’s Memorial Hospital in Lincoln Park and is expected to take between 10 and 18 hours to complete according to the Chicago Department of Transportation.
Parking on streets surrounding the hospital will restricted for staging all the ambulances necessary for this massive move.
While the 2300 north block of Orchard will be the main staging street in Lincoln Park, other streets around both the old and new hospital will have parking restrictions imposed as well including:
- 500-700 blocks of Fullerton Parkway
- 2300 block of Orchard and Lincoln Avenue
- 200-400 blocks of Chicago Avenue
- 200 block of East Superior Street
- The north side of 100-200 blocks of East Lake Shore Drive
“The City asks Chicagoans for consideration in scheduling events and making travel plans this weekend to assist the hospital in its efforts to efficiently and safely transport these young patients, who require the utmost care as they are moved,” said CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein.
While CDOT says it is unlikely, if all the patients do not get moved on Saturday, parking restrictions and street closures will continue into Sunday.
I dunno, I live a block from Fullerton on LPW and a few ambulances are driving by about every 15 minutes. Seems like a total waste. For 200 patients, couldn’t they have just moved say, 15 a day for a week or so, in regular traffic?
What exactly is the purpose behind the closure? Like, what problem is it supposed to solve or address?
Instead they inconvenience how many thousands of people by blocking a major artery so some pol can act like a big-shot and authorize this? And to they need 2-4 traffic aides and police at every intersection?
So to update, N. bound LSD is a parking lot from at least Oak St. to Belmont; the exit at LaSalle to Clark is jammed, and the exits N. bound at Recreation and Montrose are jammed.
How many people inconvenienced for this nonsense?
to Michaelnet: The hospital cannot afford to run two completely independent hospitals. The move is costing them a big wad of cash. In order to do the move, they had to delay non-emergency admissions and the like.
Why the closure? Well, if your child was critically ill and needed special care at all times, would you appreciate his vehicle being tied up in traffic or getting into a vehicular accident?
And by the way, all those traffic aides are being paid by Childrens.
Michael -
What the hell is wrong with you?
These are some of the sickest kids in the Chicago area – some are infants waiting for heart transplants. I’m sorry your day might be interrupted to help keep some child alive. As far as I’m concerned, it would be fine if they had to shut down one of the expressways to do it.
I hope my priorities never get as selfish and skewed as your.
There’s actually nothing wrong with me, but thanks for the concern.
Fullerton in traffic would add maybe an extra ten minutes onto the ride, even less time mid-day. And, you know, being ambulances with the lights on and all, cars pull over and let them through.
Saying “it’s for the children” doesn’t actually address the issue of why they closed the street. And if they were worried about getting into an accident with another car, shouldn’t they have closed LSD southbound too?
And I just don’t believe “they can’t afford to operate two hospitals” for one week, after just spending $915 million to build the new facility. Nobody believes that. Nobody.
This is a traffic blog, and I’m commenting on traffic. And this is my neighborhood, so let’s keep our focus.
Michaelnet wrote:
The traffic on Fullerton would have added an extra 10 minutes….
My comment:
Pleased to see that we have an MD posting that can clearly say that an extra 10 minutes away for critical medical equipment would have no impact. Also glad to see that he knows that it only takes money to keep to Hospitals open at the same time for several weeks. Glad to know that we have such a surfeit of health care personnel with experience with very sick kids.
What? we don’t?
I think that 99% of us would not have objected for much larger closures. After all they closed Lincoln this weekend for 3 days for a rib cookout…. A lot more disruption for a far less. Important purpose.
My car was parked on Larrabee on June 9 and there were no signs and they towed all the cars on the street between Fullerton and North. Had to pay $170 in towing fees and then just got a $60 ticket from the City today. Any way to contest this? Ridiculous.
Parag,
The way to contest it is to find a way to establish that your car was towed improperly.
If a LOT of cars were towed like you say, then the hearing officer can look it up, see many cars were towed and hopefully conclude signs were not posted. Was there anyone else who can back up your story besides you?
If so, have them write a letter explaining the situation and have it notarized. This is now considered a sworn statement and can be introduced as such at your hearing.