Outside Mario Aguirre’s office in Chicago’s Archer Heights neighborhood, traffic is so bad that people hit a tree, mailbox, light pole, brick wall, vehicle or pedestrian about once a week.
Aguirre, president of the United Credit Union, said the main problem is the torrent of 18-wheel diesel freight trucks. They pour in and out of a BNSF intermodal rail yard at Pulaski Road and 41st Street, just south of I-55.
The trucks slow Pulaski’s four lanes of traffic so much, he said, that people often try to beat the red lights by racing through parking zones, bus stops and right-turn lanes, where other drivers can’t see them.
“I’m not talking 20 or 30 miles an hour. It’s more like 50 or 60,” said Aguirre. “And what do you think happens when Pulaski is clogged up? Now they’re zooming through the neighborhood.”
Thirty miles to the southwest, Joliet Mayor Terry D’Arcy also complains about 18-wheelers that smash up the balustrades or decorative barriers outside City Hall. He said he’s tapping the brakes on new permits in neighborhoods where warehouses have mushroomed far beyond the city’s initial plans.
“This thing is so far out of balance, we really have to look at a long-term comprehensive plan,” D’Arcy said in a recent interview.
“We need to look out 20 years when we’ll have double the amount of truck traffic we have now and make sure we’re doing what’s right,” he said.
Joliet and Archer Heights are only two examples of the congestion-on-steroids spreading through Chicago’s freight hubs. But they’re like canaries in a coal mine.
Their experiences warn about how today’s rapid shipping methods can take over neighborhoods and damage public health. They’ve pushed Joliet and Archer Heights into an intensifying search for policy alternatives, including electric and hydrogen-powered trucks, which so far have faced an uphill battle in Springfield.
Truck traffic on Ottawa Street in downtown Joliet on March 29, 2024. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
As a first step, they’re simply trying to count the trucks.
According to a new study from the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization and the Center for Neighborhood Technology, during a 24-hour period on May 16 of last year, 5,159 18-wheelers, delivery trucks and buses passed through the intersection of 41st and Pulaski.
During the peak hour of 11 a.m., that meant a truck or bus every 8.3 seconds.
Even at 5 a.m., a truck roared by every 17 seconds.
Trucks and buses comprised 11% of the 48,569 vehicles that passed through the intersection that day. The traffic included 129 pedestrians and 17 brave souls on bicycles.
Of the 35 sites in Chicago where LVEJO and CNT did their counting, 41st and Pulaski had the most trucks.
The groups chose these locations partly to document the outsized impact of trucks in Black and brown communities.
The Archer Heights neighborhood is 80% Latino, according to LVEJO and CNT.
Eight miles to the northeast, at Ashland and Fullerton avenues in a Lincoln Park neighborhood that’s 80% white, trucks and buses made up 4% of traffic, LVEJO and CNT said.
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LVEJO and CNT spent $60,000 on professional traffic counters and other costs and allocated some of their own staff time. They did so in part because BNSF Railway and other railroads won’t say how many trucks use their intermodal facilities, according to Jose Acosta, LVEJO’s senior transportation policy analyst.
Primary financial support came from Delivering Zero Emissions Communities, a consortium that’s funded by the Hewlett Foundation and others, and in Chicago includes LVEJO, CNT and the Chicago Department of Transportation.
City and state regulators display average daily traffic counts for significant streets and sometimes break out trucks on their websites.
But even after years of prodding from community groups, they don’t provide anything like the detailed analysis that LVEJO and CNT compiled, especially for a string of adjoining neighborhoods.
For example, the groups profiled six locations in Little Village, three in McKinley Park and two in Brighton Park, all neighborhoods that sit beside I-55 and wrestle with its freight every day.
Paulina Vaca of CNT also produced a cumulative impact map showing health risks not just in the city but also in big suburban freight hubs such as Bensenville, Harvey and Joliet.
LVEJO and CNT will use the data, Acosta said, to pick locations for the 50 air quality monitors they plan to install in the coming year.
This will help them press their case, Acosta said, for electric truck mandates and land-use policies that disperse warehouses and truck traffic instead of concentrating them in Black and brown neighborhoods.
They also want more enforcement to reduce excessive idling and speeding and to keep trucks away from parks and schools.
LVEJO and CNT found, for example, that 37 tractor-trailers drove on Kostner Avenue north of 31st Street on May 16, even though the city has declared this Little Village area a truck-free zone to protect students at Zapata Elementary Academy.
If they’d had the truck counts and associated video earlier, Acosta said, they could have done a better job refuting complaints from some in City Hall that they were exaggerating or even falsifying their claims.
“The city keeps saying it’s more important for our community to have a 1.2 million square foot warehouse than to have air quality,” he said. “It’s like we’re being sacrificed, and somebody has to be held accountable.”
‘Intermodals as beehives’
Of all the suburbs around Chicago, Joliet has embraced warehouses most enthusiastically.
Robert O’Dekirk, the city’s mayor for eight years ending in 2023, used to brag about warehouses.
“We’ve had $5 billion in economic development,” he told the Tribune last year. “We’re doing extremely well.”
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In part, O’Dekirk was trying to make a virtue out of necessity.
He always argued that Joliet should try to capitalize on warehouses and funnel their trucks into closed-loop highways away from residential streets because the city can’t stop BNSF and the Union Pacific Railroad from expanding their intermodal yards anyway.
According to Terry D’Arcy, who unseated O’Dekirk, the railroads are in the process of nearly doubling their Joliet-area intermodal capacity to 2.2 million annual “lifts,” or container movements on or off a rolling chassis or trailer.
He said this will add 500,000 truck trips a year to the city’s roads. But the railroads don’t need a local permit since they’re regulated at the federal level.
“I refer to the intermodals as beehives,” D’Arcy said. “That means we’ve got 80,000-pound bees using 10,000-pound roads all over our cities.’’
BNSF spokesman Zak Andersen didn’t respond to questions about intensifying local congestion in Chicago other than to say the railroad is bringing some warehouses closer to its intermodal yards. But he said in an email that combined train and truck or intermodal shipments generate less traffic, burn less fuel and release fewer emissions than long-haul trucks alone.
Joliet never achieved the control it wanted over truck traffic partly because of a quirk in geography, said Hugh O’Hara, executive director of the Will County Governmental League.
NorthPoint Development, a Kansas City firm, built three warehouses that remain unused, southeast of downtown Joliet, March 14, 2024. NorthPoint has proposed to build 33 warehouses in total, with the existing three tied up in lawsuits. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
As trucks come south toward the intermodals from warehouse-rich suburbs such as Bolingbrook, many use Illinois Route 53. This forces them onto the east side of the Des Plaines River, through Joliet’s downtown and right past City Hall.
O’Hara said that if traffic is snarled, many start looking for alternate routes through residential streets and often rely on smartphone navigation systems that don’t point them to designated truck routes.
When Joliet’s real estate market tanked during the 2008 economic crisis, the city started authorizing warehouses all across Joliet, not just close to the intermodals. That made daily commutes longer, more unpredictable, and more dangerous for the city’s 150,000 residents, 44% of whom are white and 33% Latino.
Nearby towns also got hit.
The village of Elwood, for example, was one of the most polluted U.S. cities for PM2.5 particulates last year, according to a global study by Goldach, Switzerland-based IQAIR.
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An ExxonMobil tar sands refinery and a BNSF intermodal rail yard both lie on the outskirts of Elwood where prevailing westerly winds blow straight into town.
Elwood has been busing its high school students 10 miles north to Joliet for decades. The town may now send them to Wilmington or New Lenox instead. It’s a controversial step Elwood is considering only because its school buses always get stuck in truck traffic on their way to Joliet, and its students are late for class routinely.
In nearby Manhattan, the village of 10,000 does a significant amount of truck enforcement with only a few patrol officers on duty, said Mayor Mike Adrieansen. But traffic is rapidly increasing, making it impossible to address all the truck violations.
All the freight-heavy towns around Manhattan, Adrieansen said, should stop permitting warehouses until they figure out better solutions. “A moratorium would be great,” he said.
No simple solutions
As they battle air pollution, it’s easy to see why environmental justice groups such as LVEJO and CNT are worried about trucks.
According to the American Transportation Research Institute, the whole stretch of I-55 from Harlem Avenue to Western Avenue ranks as the third-worst truck bottleneck in the country.
The Chicago region ranks second only to London in global rankings for the amount of time people lose every year to congestion, according to INRIX, a traffic analysis firm based near Seattle.
In an official planning report released in December, the Illinois Department of Transportation said freight and freight-related industries comprise nearly 40% of the state’s economy.
On page 11 of the 113-page report, IDOT also noted without comment that total annual freight tonnage could nearly double in Illinois by 2050.
The relative growth would be even greater in Cook County, which would handle 41% of the state’s freight in 2050 compared to 33% currently, according to IDOT.
The department also made no comment about new rules that will make it much harder for Cook County and other urban parts of the state to comply with federal limits on PM2.5 particulate matter, including diesel soot, even without massive increases in truck traffic.
According to state regulators, transportation, mainly from cars and trucks, is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Illinois. These emissions worldwide helped make 2023 the hottest year on record.
Nationwide, medium- and heavy-duty trucks account for less than 10% of vehicles on the road but more than 60% of on-road vehicle emissions of nitrogen oxide or NOx, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. This invisible gas contributes to childhood asthma and other diseases.
These emissions are undeniably bad. But they don’t lend themselves to simple or easily accepted solutions.
That became clear last month when Little Village Democratic Rep. Edgar Gonzalez and two other representatives tried to schedule a hearing on a bill for Illinois to join 10 states in adopting an Advanced Clean Truck rule and related measures modeled after California.
By adopting California’s rules, Gonzalez wanted Illinois to set increasing requirements for battery and hydrogen-powered truck sales, up to 40% for big tractor-trailers and 75% for medium-size delivery trucks by 2035.
The state’s limits on NOx emissions from future diesel vehicles would also get tighter over time. But truckers could keep using vehicles they have now.
The Gonzalez bill, if passed, would mark the first time Illinois has set tailpipe pollution limits tougher than the federal government’s. California has been doing so for half a century.
On Friday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized rules that could force Illinois and other states not following California to derive 25% of big tractor-trailer sales from zero emission trucks starting in 2032.
The Gonzalez bill prompted an immediate pushback from truckers who, according to the American Transportation Research Institute, provide 1 in 15 jobs in the state.
The Illinois Trucking Association asked opponents of the bill to register their complaints with legislators. More than 5,500 people did, compared to just over 600 supporters. The truckers also rallied farmers, manufacturers and auto dealers to their cause.
Gonzalez, who quickly pulled the bill, didn’t return calls seeking comment.
George Beutel’s family has grown corn and soybeans in the Shorewood area for 100 years. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
Among the opponents was George Beutel. His family has raised corn and soybeans in the Shorewood area just west of Joliet for 100 years.
As spring approaches, Beutel and his brother Dan have yet to start planting on the 1,200 acres they own or rent. But they’re preparing their equipment — including the four 18-wheelers they’ll need at harvest time.
The oldest of the trucks was built in 1991, and Beutel knows all four like the back of his hand. His first-hand knowledge of electric trucks doesn’t come close.
“I’ve never seen one out on I-55 or I-80,’’ he said.
Beutel said at age 65, he’s hoping to never buy another truck. He can’t afford an electric truck anyway.
According to the trucking association, a battery-powered heavy-duty truck currently costs $480,000, or more than twice as much as its diesel counterpart.
Beutel doesn’t haul anything into Little Village. He’d like to help the neighborhood with its pollution but needs to know how.
“We all want to breathe the air,” he said. “We all want to keep it clean.”
George Beutel, whose family has been farming in the Shorewood area, near Joliet, for decades, on March 14, 2024. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
According to BloombergNEF, a research branch of Bloomberg LP, even if electric trucks cost more to own and operate today, cheaper batteries mean they won’t for long.
By 2030, according to BloombergNEF, a battery-powered short-haul tractor-trailer truck will not only cost less to buy than its diesel counterpart, but also enjoy lower maintenance and fuel costs over the course of its lifetime.
The batteries will also be getting lighter, the Bloomberg research said. The trucking association warned that heavy batteries on today’s electric trucks mean less cargo than with diesels, and so would clog Chicago with even more traffic.
‘Carrots rather than sticks’
In Springfield, the Pritzker administration is also thinking about freight.
J.C. Kibbey, who advises the governor on environmental policy, recently published a report on how Illinois can fight climate change.
Kibbey said regulators can monitor air quality at “key distributed freight hubs” and in nearby homes. The state can also promote the electrification of locomotives and rail yards so trains won’t have to stand around so much with their diesel engines idling.
However, Kibbey specified that his report “does not constitute an endorsement of a specific policy.”
When asked recently about the proposed California-style truck mandate, Pritzer said that’s his ultimate goal, but “now is not the right time.”
Last month, Pritzker dedicated a manufacturing training center in Normal and told reporters he’s relying on “carrots rather than sticks” to replace vehicles that burn fossil fuel.
So far, that’s mostly meant subsidies for factories that build electric vehicles. In the last nine years, Illinois has attracted $8.1 billion in investments for electric vehicle manufacturing, creating 10,700 jobs, the Environmental Defense Fund said.
As these Springfield debates grind on, Archer Heights wants immediate relief. That’s why 75 people attended a safety meeting organized Thursday by Ald. Jeylu Gutierrez.
“I’m afraid to cross the street,” Noe Villagomez, who lives near Pulaski and 45th, told attendees. “I’m ready to sell my house.”
Residents also called for more police, more red light cameras, and a crackdown on so-called drifters who spin their cars in tight circles to please onlookers.
City engineers promised more cement barriers on Pulaski to slow down the flood of cars and trucks.
Trucks and trains are nothing new to Archer Heights. Trains helped attract Polish and Lithuanian immigrants starting in the 1890s and the neigborhood’s truck-focused economy helped draw Latinos a century later, even as many of the neighborhood’s factories gave way to warehouses and food service providers.
“I smell tortilla chips when I arrive in the morning and chocolate chip cookies when I leave,” said Mario Aguirre, who’s worked at United Credit Union for eight years.
Mario Aguirre, president of United Credit Union, is concerned about the heavy and dangerous traffic on the Pulaski Road corridor south of I-55 in the Archer Heights neighborhood. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
When he leaves work at 4 p.m., Aguirre said, traffic on Pulaski is often at a standstill, partly because of the 11 traffic lights in the three-quarters of a mile between I-55 and his building at 45th Street.
During the 11 a.m. peak at Pulaski and 41st Street, when a truck passes by every 8.3 seconds, there’s hardly a moment when additional trucks aren’t lined up waiting to get through.
The same thing happens on the north side of the freeway, at Pulaski and 36th Street, just outside a Target warehouse. During the day’s peak, a truck passes every 10.7 seconds, according to LVEJO and CNT data.
Heavy traffic at 41st Street and Pulaski Road in the Archer Heights neighborhood, March 27, 2024. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
The same thing happens on the east side of the BNSF intermodal, at 40th Street and Kedzie, where a truck passes every 15.5 seconds during the peak hour.
All this traffic makes it harder for Aguirre to retain employees. The workers he’s hired from Archer Heights, he said, are too scared of Pulaski traffic to walk even a few blocks to retailers such as Target or Aldi. So they drive instead.
“That’s why all those suburban communities right off some highway, including Aurora where I live, are very much against distribution centers, for fear of experiencing these same issues,” Aguirre said.
Presenting a united front
Even in Joliet, D’Arcy said he’s slowing his review of new warehouse permits. But he can’t stop developments already underway, including the 30 additional warehouses that NorthPoint Development, a Kansas City firm, wants to build southeast of town.
After seven years of trying, the company has built just three warehouses. These, along with a partially built highway bridge, stand unused as NorthPoint battles a welter of lawsuits.
NorthPoint could remain a vacant dystopian landscape if CenterPoint Properties — a rival developer — can convince a judge to bar NorthPoint’s trucks from a road CenterPoint built into the Joliet intermodals years ago.
The next hearing is Friday. If the project goes forward, D’Arcy still needs to ensure that his long-term plan can handle the NorthPoint crush, according to one early estimate, of 16,000 truck trips and 37,000 passenger-vehicle trips per day.
A partially built highway overpass at IL-53 sits next to three warehouses that NorthPoint Development has built southeast of downtown Joliet, March 14, 2024. NorthPoint wants to build 33 warehouses in total. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
He also wants to keep trucks out of downtown Joliet, a change that could require an additional bridge over the Des Plaines.
Since he’s thinking big, D’Arcy also dreams about quality jobs and affordable housing for Joliet’s warehouse workers and hydrogen refueling stations for the region’s trucks. A part-time mayor, he also owns North America’s largest Hyundai dealership.
Unlike O’Dekirk, who annexed unincorporated land despite fierce resistance from his neighbors, D’Arcy said he’ll try to cooperate with leaders in Elwood, Manhattan, Jackson Township and elsewhere.
Joliet and the towns around it need to present a united front, he said, when Springfield starts writing its next big road-building bill.
“Some bridges and roads will be needed, so the big question is what it will take,” D’Arcy said. “Is it going to be a $3 billion plan over 10 or 12 years?
“If it is, then let’s lay it out there and start moving forward.”
Whatever the outcome, Archer Heights and Joliet already illustrate one of the stark lessons of Chicago’s warehouse boom — that Americans can’t expect to enjoy the benefits of rapid, ever-growing freight shipments without paying for the necessary infrastructure and without encountering increasingly sophisticated demands from the towns being smothered by trucks.
