At work today, I was talking to someone about Lake Shore Drive. He mentioned to me that trucks, to include pickup trucks, are banned from LSD. He went on to say that the parking of pickup trucks on city streets is banned as well. He added, when speaking of the parking ban, that if the truck had a bed top, then the ban doesn’t apply. For some reason, none of this surprises me, if true. But I cannot imagine why this would be.
So, Googling around a bit, I find some mention of a pickup truck/van parking ban, but I cannot find the actual text of the laws. So my questions:
Are trucks, including pickups, banned from LSD? If so, why? (Large trucks, sure. But pickups?)
I’ve seen comercial vehicle bans in many places. These generaly apply to any vehicle with comercial plates regardless of type or size. Many people get ticketed in NewYork thinking comercial vehicles means trucks like 18 wheelers.
A friend of mine got ticketed for driving his Toyota pickup on LSD. Granted this was almost 15 years ago - maybe they’ve relaxed enforcement in the years since then. But it has certainly been enforced in the past.
All trucks* are banned from Chicago boulevards by ordinance. LSD is considered to be a boulevard.
My understanding (no time to look it up at the moment) is that trucks are defined as such depending on their state license plate status, not manufacturer class.
Some large vehicles that most people would consider to be trucks are licensed in Illinois as recreational vehicles, and therefore aren*t subject to the ban.
Here (warning - PDF) is some newsletter (from March 2003) that turned up after a quick Google search.
Apparently, at that time, there was pending legislation (Illinois House Bill 3527) that would open up “Chicago’s network of boulevards, including Lake Shore Drive,” to pickups, and some other vehicles weighing less than 8,000 pounds. Regarding the history of the ban, the article states: “The state measure to permit pickups on Chicago’s scenic drives would overcome a ban by the city that dates to the 1920s, when pickups were used for work and were considered eyesores.”
Since that was nearly four years ago, I assume that the bill in question has either passed or not by now.
Not being from Chicago, I’m not quite sure what they mean when they talk of “the boulevards”, either.
“The Boulevards” are a set of wide, high-traffic surface streets that form a belt most of the way around the city. You can see a map of them here, from when they were in the planning stages. Lakeshore Drive wasn’t built until 1937, and so didn’t exist at the time that map was made.
Note: the term “the Boulevards” is not common in Chicago parlance. So don’t blame me if you use it the next time you’re in Chicago and people start looking at you funny.
I’ve been told (and it may be totally wrong) that LSD and the streets with “Avenue” are the ones you can’t go on in a van (without back side windows) or a pickup (without a bed top). So Sheridan (Road) is okay, but Western (Avenue) is not.
Interesting link. Car dealers feel there is a “modest” chilling effect to pickup sales so they lobby for a state bill that would tell Chicago and other cities that they can’t discriminate against some Class B vehicles.
