Camiros led a team of consultants under contract to IDOT to prepare a master plan to develop the 79th Street corridor in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. Touted by the neighborhood as Chicago’s next transit-oriented community, the corridor holds great potential for fostering transit-oriented development, given its concentration of transportation infrastructure, including the Dan Ryan Expressway, the 79th Street bus line (the highest ridership in Chicago), and a future Metra station at 79th Street and Fielding Avenue. The emergence of this station is due to the efforts of local community leadership who earlier participated in the preparation of a Quality of Life Neighborhood Planning process, led by Camiros, which resulted in a new neighborhood plan for the area supported by the Mayor. The leadership was able to focus attention of the City, Metra and IDOT on this program, using the transit-land use principles and program developed by Camiros as part of the plan.
The plan included the creation of a” transit village,” which brings principles of transit-land use coordination and TOD to the Winneconna neighborhood and the adjacent 79th street commercial district. The plan foresees improved neighborhood connections and TOD development both within the Winneconna Transit Village and at the 79th Street Red Line CTA station area through continuous, emerging transit-oriented development.
