Tag: Gabe Klein

Highlights from this week’s Mayor’s Bike Advisory Council meeting

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CDOT staff front row, l-r: Share the Road Coordinator Carlin Thomas, Deputy Commissioner Luann Hamilton, Bike Coordinator Ben Gomberg, Commissioner Gabe Klein.

Wednesday Steven and I attended the quarterly Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council meeting at City Hall, a great opportunity for citizens to get updates on Chicago’s bike projects and network with planners and advocates. Currently the meetings are geared towards “stakeholders,” staff from various city departments, the park district, CTA, the Active Transportation Alliance and other nonprofits, but the general public is welcome to attend and ask questions at the end of the meeting. To get on the mailing list for MBAC meeting announcements contact Carlin Thomas at carlin.thomas[at]activetrans.org, or sign up on this webpage. Here are a few news items from the meeting.

Bike Share

Although the bike sharing program failed to launch this year, Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) bike coordinator Ben Gomberg said things are on track for a spring 2013 debut. The project was awarded a total of $22 million in federal funding, which will pay for a system with 4,000 bikes and 400 rental kiosks (in two implementation phases). Gomberg said the current challenge is to find the required twenty percent local match of $5.5 million. CDOT has secured enough funding from Tax Increment Financing dollars and aldermanic menu money to cover the local match for the first year of operations. Gomberg joked that if anyone at meeting had a friend with a few extra million to donate, the city would gladly name the bike share system after the benefactor.

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Bike share in Berlin.

Asked exactly when the system will launch next year, CDOT commissioner Gabe Klein said, “As soon as possible, as soon as the sun is shining and it’s 55, 60 degrees.” Gomberg added, “Let’s just say there’s an optimist and a pessimist in this room.” A potential speed bump is that Bike Chicago (a Grid Chicago sponsor) is contesting the contract, claiming that Alta Bike Share was given an unfair advantage in the bidding process. The case is currently under investigation by the city’s Office of Inspector General.

In October the city will hold three public meetings across the city to introduce the program and ask for suggestions for the kiosk locations. Initially the boundaries of the service area will be Montrose Avenue, Damen Avenue, 43rd Street and Lake Michigan; in time the borders will expand, and hopefully most of the city will someday get bike share. CDOT has already identified about 150 locations for kiosks, mostly at CTA and Metra stations, but the city will also be creating a “crowdsourcing” website to solicit suggestions for locations, Gomberg said. When New York City did this they received over 8,000 recommendations.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)

The CTA’s Chris Ziemann and Joe Iaccobucci gave an update on local efforts to create bus-priority corridors, including the impact on cycling. They compared the project to their agency’s work to eliminate slow zones on the ‘L’, suggesting that BRT routes on wide streets with high bus ridership will function like efficient rail lines. Construction of new bus facilities along Jeffrey Boulevard started last month and operations may start by the end of the year. Ziemann and Iaccobucci acknowledged that Jeffrey will “by no means” be true BRT, since its bus-only lanes will only exist on a portion of the route and only during rush hours. But they said the dedicated lanes plus other firsts like bus-priority traffic signals and a queue jump, will pave the way for more ambitious BRT projects.

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CTA rendering of a potential BRT lane configuration on Ashland.

The CTA is currently studying 21-mile corridors on Western and Ashland Avenues as potential locations for more robust bus-priority routes. And the agency plans to complete design work for the Central Loop BRT from Union Station to Navy Pier by 2013, with construction happening in 2014. The project would include dedicated bus lanes, a new off-street bus terminal near the railroad station, level bus loading platforms, and protected bike lanes on Washington and Randolph streets.

Download the CTA’s BRT slideshow.

Protected bike lane maintenance

CDOT bikeways project manager Mike Amsden said the department is aware that removal of debris and snow from protected lanes will be a growing issue as the network expands. He showed a slide of broken glass in the new lanes on Elston Avenue. “We are working our tails off to figure out how to do this the best we can,” he said. Amsden added the city is looking into the possibility of purchasing a compact street cleaner especially for use on the bike lanes. Some of the amusingly named models they’re considering include the Madvac CN100, the Green Machine, the Elgin Broom Badger and the Nitehawk 200 Osprey, which sounds like a vehicle David Hasselhoff might drive. The city is also considering applying – no joke – a mixture of salt and beet juice to the protected lanes prior to snowfall to prevent accumulation. I assume this technique was pioneered in Denmark, where they eat beets with everything.

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The Nitehawk 200 Osprey: a lone crusader in a dangerous world of bike lane debris.

Bike Parking

Chris Gagnon, my successor as the city’s bike parking manager, is moving on after five years in the position and almost a decade at the bike program. Gagnon’s productive tour of duty saw the installation of some 3,000 bike racks and the city’s first on-street parking corrals. He reported that new corrals recently debuted in Andersonville next to the existing “People Spot” parklet, 5228 N. Clark Street, and in front of the Hopleaf bar, 5148 N. Clark. There will be a “Party in the People Spot” celebration of the new green space and racks this Friday from 5:30 – 7 p.m. at the parklet. Gagnon added that the city’s first year-round on-street parking corral is coming to Café Jumping Bean in Pilsen at 1439 W. 18th Street.

One community member asked if CDOT could create a document or brochure that he could give to businesses that are interested in installing a bike rack they purchase. Commissioner Klein mentioned how in Washington, D.C., there was a program called Bike Brand Your Biz and said that the department will have a guide done by December on how a developer can get a bike rack.

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New on-street bike corral by the Andersonville People Spot. Photo courtesy of the Andersonville Development Corporation.

Aldermanic Bike Camps

Charlie Short, manager of Chicago’s Bicycling Ambassador program, reported on the four bike-safety camps inspired by visits by aldermen Ameya Pawar (47th), Pat Dowell (3rd), Harry Osterman (48th) and Danny Solis (25th) to bike-friendly European countries. Bikes Belong, a national advocacy group, donated Schwinn BMX bikes to the eighty campers. “My hands were like claws for days after building those eighty bikes on the Friday before the camps started,” Short joked. Many of the campers had never spent much time out of their own neighborhoods but after receiving training in proper riding and maintenance techniques, they took pedal-powered field trips to destinations like major parks and a tour of Wrigley Field. “Now the kids are like, ‘Wow, bikes are freedom, they’re transportation,” said Klein. “We want to have maybe 500 kids in the program next year.”

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Pat Dowell and 3rd Ward bike campers.

MBAC community representatives

Gresham resident Demond Drummer, Mike Tomas from Garfield Park and Lincoln Park resident Michelle Stenzel are serving as stakeholder representatives for the South, West and North sides of the city, respectively. They said there’s a need for more outreach to educate the public about what the new protected and buffered bike lanes are and how to use them. “I live off of Halsted and 79th,” Drummer said. “When I woke up one morning and there was a new buffered lane on Halsted, I knew what it was. But other people see it as, ‘Oh, I’ve got a narrower lane to drive in, with a lot of paint on the side.”

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Front row: Drummer, Stenzel and Tomas.

Klein said the city will be using a number of strategies to get the word out about the incoming bike network. The Streets for Cycling 2020 Plan for 645 miles of bikeways is currently under review and which should be officially released next month. CDOT also has about $1 million set aside to create a “transportation demand management” (TDM) program this spring, which will help Chicagoans in up to three different communities find alternatives to single-occupancy vehicle trips, including cycling, possibly launching in the spring. In addition, the agency is creating a new website and blog to promote sustainable transportation options, similar to Washington, D.C.’s colorful goDCgo.com. “By December we’ll have something nice to present to you,” Klein promised.

Updated September 20 to add information about bike parking for businesses and the CTA’s BRT slideshow. 

Chicago’s first pedestrian plan includes great ideas, lacks some information

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A press conference was held last Thursday at the southeast corner of Dearborn Street and Madison Street to announce the city’s first pedestrian plan. Present were commissioners of transportation and public health, Gabe Klein, and Bechara Choucair, respectively, Metropolitan Planning Council vice president Peter Skosey, and various CDOT staff.

After 20 minutes of speeches from Klein, Choucair, Skosey, and Active Transportation Alliance director Ron Burke, CDOT pedestrian program coordinator Suzanne Carlson and Klein applied a diamond shaped decal to a sidewalk corner across Madison Street. The bright yellow “sticker on the street” says, “Be Alert. Be Safe. We’re all pedestrians.” It’s part of the Pedestrian Safety Campaign launched last year that also included 32 mannequins scattered around Wacker Drive and then to other sites, as well as orange flags at certain crosswalks, and a somewhat grotesque ad campaign on trash bins and buses.

The Pedestrian Plan has its merits and faults. The document is nicely designed, easy to read, informative (it does a great job introducing people to “pedestrian safety tools” that are mentioned later in the plan), but still speaks to the car-centric profession of traffic (transportation) engineering exhibited in Chicago. Continue reading Chicago’s first pedestrian plan includes great ideas, lacks some information

Parking space party: celebrating Chicago’s first permanent parklets

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The Lakeview “People Spot.”

A new city initiative is taking land that’s currently dead space, or used only for parking cars, and turning it into public space that could energize neighborhood business strips. On Friday the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) officially launched its “Make Way for People” program to transform surplus asphalt into seating areas and lively plazas, unveiling a new parklet in the parking lane in front of Heritage Bicycles, 2959 N. Lincoln Avenue.

The $25,000 installation, which CDOT is calling a “People Spot”, was paid for by the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce via Special Service Area (SSA) #27. (An SSA is a designated district where additional services, programs and projects are funded by an additional property tax.) The parklet, which will be removed in the fall and re-installed in the spring, will be maintained by the bike shop/café, but non-customers are welcome to use the space as well. Due to the city’s contract with LAZ Parking, removing the two metered parking spaces in front of Heritage for the parklet required creating two new metered spots elsewhere in the neighborhood.

Last week a new People Spot also debuted in Andersonville at the T-shaped intersection of Clark Street and Farragut Avenue. It was funded by SSA #22, the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce and a Kickstarter campaign. for a total of about $20,000. Two more parklets are proposed for the neighborhood, and an on-street bike parking corral is slated to open this fall in front of Hopleaf, a tavern at 5148 N. Clark, where it’s sorely needed. Another pair of People Spots funded by SSA #47 / Quad Communities Development Corporation should open in Bronzeville next week, at 47th and Champlain Avenue, and at 47th and Greenwood Avenue.

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The Andersonville parklet.

In addition to the parking lane seating areas, CDOT plans to convert cul-de sacs, dead-end streets and other excess pavement into public spaces called “People Streets.” Underutilized existing public plazas, malls and triangles will become “People Plazas” with better maintenance and new event programming, possibly bankrolled by private sponsorship. “People Alleys” will be alleyways used for seating, artwalks and other events.

Here’s a partial transcript of CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein’s remarks at the celebration:

People Spots are a new use of our public space. It’s fun and good for business. It’s a way to enhance our public space and activate it, make it more inviting and also to create space for people to hang out, read or have a nonalcoholic drink where there might not be enough public space. And in this case we’re using two parking spaces, which we’ve offset with two parking spaces somewhere else. [“In my ward,” chimed in 44th Ward Alderman Tom Tunney, who attended along with 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack – the parklet is located in Waguespack’s district.]

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Klein, Waguespack and Tunney.

[Klein thanked the aldermen, the city’s law department (which drafted the ordinance that permitted the new land use), Lakeview Chamber of Commerce director Heather Way and Heritage owner Michael Salvatore.]

I was talking to the mayor yesterday and we were talking about a host of different topics including the Make Way for People program, and he said something that I found inspiring. We were talking about this and we were talking about the Open Streets event that’s going to happen in the next month or so and he said, “When you think of all these different things that we’re doing with public space, what it’s really all about is celebrating Chicago.” And I think what he meant is that Chicago is known for its public space, its architecture, for its arts and its creativity, and this celebrates all of those things. And Chicago should be leading the country in utilizing its public space in the smartest ways possible.

[Klein thanked CDOT staffers Janet Attarian and Gerardo Garcia, who managed the parklet project. He then defined People Streets, People Plazas and People Alleys and mentioned that the city wants to turn a Loop alley, Couch Place, as public space.]

Next year we envision a much larger, more formal rollout of the program, again with People Spots, plazas, alleys and so on. And so we want to hear from the public, what they like, and their ideas. We’d like to hear from the SSAs. The SSA is extremely important for the funding, managing the construction, and also making sure that they’re maintained afterwards. So this is a true public/private partnership and we’re very excited about it.

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Afterwards I asked Klein about the issue of the parking contract, which requires the city to compensate LAZ for any loss of revenue due to the removal of metered parking spaces, limiting the amount of space available for People Spots and other novel uses of the public way, like protected bike lanes

Great project. You guys did a great job of getting around the problem with the parking meters on this. But it seems like the parking meter contract has really hampered your ability to do creative projects like this citywide. Is anything being done to reverse the contract so that you can do more innovative projects like this in other parts of the city?

It’s funny you bring that up. I was joking with David Spielfogel, who’s the head of policy and strategy for the mayor, this morning on Twitter about all of the obstacles that we come up against in our jobs and I used the quote, “Persistence always overcomes resistance.” There’s always a way to do things if you’re creative. So what’s wonderful about this project is the incredible partnership between all these people that you see out here and the public in general. If we all put our minds together we can get something done.

With the parking meter issue in particular, there is unregulated space, we just have to find it. So we looked around here and we found some space that wasn’t metered. The beauty of it is that will become a permanent space that will produce revenue all year [while parking revenue will only be lost in front of Heritage for half the year] and we can bank it, so that next year we’re covered as well.

But are there any efforts to overturn the parking meter contract that you can tell us about?

You know I don’t actually manage that, and not that I know of.

Halting words: Klein and Smith discuss the new “Stop for Pedestrians” signs

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CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein and 43rd Ward Alderman Michele Smith. Photo by Steven.

The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) recently began the process of installing hundreds of signs citywide in an effort to educate motorists about the state law requiring them to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk. The signs cost $400 each, sited and installed, a relative bargain for infrastructure that will raise awareness of pedestrian safety, calm traffic and possibly save lives.

At a press conference yesterday in Lincoln Park by the Brown Line’s Diversey station, CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein and 43rd Ward Alderman Michele Smith discussed the benefits of the signs. They also crossed Diversey several times to demonstrate the signs’ effectiveness, with drivers usually, but not always, stopping for them without being prompted. The event was particularly timely because the previous night a young girl named Monet Robinson was killed by a hit-and-run driver on the West Side. Here’s a transcript of Klein’s speech:

Continue reading Halting words: Klein and Smith discuss the new “Stop for Pedestrians” signs

Fatality tracker: 5-year-old girl killed in hit-and-run crash

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“It’s up to you”, an image of a mannequin t-shirt’s pedestrian safety message from fall 2011. It’s hard to tell if this message is directed at people walking along and across the street, or at those who can inflict traffic harm against them. Photo by Kevin Zolkiewicz. 

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 7 (6 have been from hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 0
Transit: 5

Be on the lookout for a green, four-door Pontiac Grand Am with extensive damage to the passenger side front headlight that the Chicago Police Department said was involved in a crash with a 5-year-old girl named Monet Robinson, who died at Mount Sinai Hospital less than 30 minutes after the collision (on Monday, July 2). Police officer Daniel O’Brien said that they are searching for a male driver in his 20s, according to CBS Chicago.

The crash occurred in the 1500 S Millard Avenue block in the North Lawndale neighborhood. Below is a Street View image of the block. According to our tracking for 2012, this is the eighth pedestrian traffic fatality, and the sixth hit-and-run pedestrian fatality. In 2010, the last year for which compiled data is available (from the Illinois Department of Transportation), there were 22 pedestrian deaths until July 2, 2010.

At a press conference in Lincoln Park today to highlight new “stop for pedestrians in crosswalk” signs, transportation commissioner Gabe Klein offered his condolences and mentioned that automated speed enforcement cameras might have been able to film the collision. He said that the crash location was between two schools; speed cameras are only allowed to be placed within 1/8 mile of schools and parks.

Huffington Post has additional info, links, and a video.

View 1500 S Millard Avenue in a larger map

* The information is only accurate as of this post’s publishing time and includes only people who died in the Chicago city limits. View previous Fatality Tracker posts. Updated 16:02 to add the victim’s name, a link to Huffington Post, and a quote from CDOT commissioner Gabe Klein.

A quick interview with Gabe Klein at the Bike to Work Rally

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Klein with Active Trans’ Julia Kim.

With terrific weather there was a good turnout at today’s Bike to Work Rally under the giant Picasso in Daley Plaza. As the festivities wound down, I buttonholed Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein to ask him a few questions about the state of cycling in Chicago.

This is going to be a big year for bicycling in Chicago. What things are you most excited about that are coming up this year?

There’s so much that we’re working on, but I’m really proud of the bike team’s efforts on the protected bike lanes and the buffered bike lanes, and traditional bike lanes. I mean, last year we put in 39 miles all across the board, which was probably more than we’ve ever done. This year we’re going to put in 25 miles of protected and buffered bike lanes, mostly protected. So I’m very excited about our efforts to make it safer for people, particularly to get to work. That’s why Bike to Work Week is great. What we’ve seen, and I’ve heard it from people in our agency is, people are like, “Wow, I didn’t know it was so much fun and so fast and so easy to get to work on my bike.” And now if we can just make it a little safer, then I think people will be like, “There’s no good reason not to do this.”

Continue reading A quick interview with Gabe Klein at the Bike to Work Rally