Author: Steven Vance

Grid Shots: Copenhagen cargo bikes

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A woman pedals her “short john” cargo bike across the world’s busiest bike intersection. 

According to Mikael Colville-Anderson, there are about 40,000 cargo bikes in the municipalities of Frederiksburg, where he and his company, Copenhagenize Consulting, live, and Copenhagen, the city where I’ve been for 5 days now.

And Saturday we held the 4th annual Danish cargo bike championships, or “Svajerløb” (pronounced zvy-uhh-loob). I participated in the Team Relay race with my friend Brandon Gobel and two Danish locals, Micha and Lasse (he cofounded the Bicycle Innovation Lab here).

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A woman pushes her trike across the sidewalk in a shopping neighborhood. 

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One trike among many bikes parked near a Metro station and indoor public market. 

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Two Bullitt bikes outside the Larry vs. Harry workshop. 

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The City of Copenhagen found four families in the Vesterbro neighborhood who wanted to securely store their cargo bikes on the street in this pink container shaped like a car. Each family has a key to their separated compartments, and the door lifts up. The City plans to build more. Each takes up 1 American car parking space, or 1.5 European car parking spaces. Gobel and Colville-Anderson are on the left side of the photo. 

See more photos from my Cargo bikes in Copenhagen set. This was an unplanned edition of Grid Shots.

Open 311 public tools and developer access for Chicago “weeks” away

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Jesse Bounds talks about the “311 volley” at the last OpenGov Meetup. 

Update September 14: One month later and the Service Tracker is now live. Input your SR number and watch its status (hopefully) change. 

At the August OpenGov Meetup, Jesse Bounds, developer with Code for America, demonstrated some of the tools to interface with “Open 311” that are available now for many cities around the country to improve city services data collection and presentation. John Tolva, Chicago’s Chief Technology Officer working with Bounds and other Code for America fellows, said that a read and write programming interface for developers will be available “in weeks, not months”.

You can view two of the tools now, but neither show information from Chicago until the launch. They’re part of “311 Labs”: The Daily Brief, and Open 311 Status – both of these are designed for non-developers. Bounds also showed off the “311 Service Request Tracker”, which was designed after shipping company package tracking websites. It shows step-by-step the process for a citizen’s request for service.

Continue reading Open 311 public tools and developer access for Chicago “weeks” away

Fatality Tracker: Woman killed after Megabus hits her crossing downtown street

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A Megabus is seen turning in 2007 at the intersection (Adams and Canal Streets, next to Union Station) of a deadly pedestrian crash last week. Photo by Thunderchild7.

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 10 (6 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 4 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 6

Donna Halstead was crossing Adams Street along Canal Street on last Tuesday, August 7, when she was struck by the passenger side mirror of a double-decker Megabus driven by Shemeka Hudson, fell to the ground, and later died. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the driver “was cited for failing to yield to a pedestrian” while state and city law require drivers to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks (where Halstead was crossing). Continue reading Fatality Tracker: Woman killed after Megabus hits her crossing downtown street

Making bus transit a priority on Western and Ashland Avenues

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Active Trans staffer Lee Crandell talks to Enrique Rico. The three poster boards are displayed at the bottom. 

Riders for Better Transit is reaching out to bus riders across the city to inform them about plans to build better bus service on Western Avenue or Ashland Avenue (or both?). They visited six bus stops last week with informational posters. Lee Crandell, campaigns director for Active Transportation Alliance, was staffing the exhibit at 18th Street and Ashland Avenue in Pilsen when I visited last Wednesday. One goal of the outreach, Crandell said, was to “make a public meeting in the street for those who couldn’t attend” the static meetings.

When I arrived, Enrique Rico was waiting for the northbound Ashland 9 bus. I noticed the next bus was coming so I tried to ask Rico a quick question before leaving, starting with if he had heard of BRT (bus rapid transit) before now. He said he hadn’t, but Crandell informed me that Rico had told him earlier he was familiar with the enhanced bus services in Mexico City. The Metropolitan Planning Council, a major sponsor of this traveling exhibit, had sent a few of its staff members to Mexico City to explore the 4 line Metrobús system that opened in 2005. Continue reading Making bus transit a priority on Western and Ashland Avenues

Fatality Tracker: Woman killed while crossing street in Jefferson Park

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Looking northwest along Milwaukee Avenue with Higgins Avenue on the left. Photo by David Wilson. 

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 8 (6 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 4 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 6

A woman crossing the street last Sunday, August 5, was killed in an automobile collision a few hundred feet from the Jefferson Park CTA and Metra stations, on her birthday. The Chicago Tribune writes, in a decidedly non–robot car fashion:

A 54-year-old man [Jeffery Dalak] was behind the wheel of a Ford Expedition and traveling west on Higgins Avenue when he struck Lovett, who was walking in a crosswalk in the 5400 block of West Higgins Avenue, Jefferson Park District Police Sgt. Wilfredo Torres said.

According to Fox Chicago News, which is misreporting the crash address, the driver “was cited for striking a pedestrian in the roadway”.

* 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.

Fatality Tracker: Semi-trailer truck driver kills bicyclist in Fuller Park, flees

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American roadway design requires people riding bicycles and people driving trucks to “share the road”. Photo of a sign in California that says “bikes in lane” by Richard Masoner. Notice that the depicted bike is “in front” of the car.

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 7 (6 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 4 (1, this one, is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 6

According to the Chicago Tribune, a robotic semi-trailer truck struck and killed Evelyn Dean yesterday, while she was bicycling, as it was entering a Norfolk Southern (NS) railroad yard in the block of 300 W 47th Street in Fuller Park.

The semi was entering the Norfolk Southern facility in the 300 block of West 47th Street around 1:40 p.m. Monday when it struck the female bicyclist and immediately fled the scene, Chicago police said, citing early reports.

The unidentified woman, believed to be in her 40s, was dead the scene, authorities said.

The Tribune story (authored by “staff”) used robot car language, which perpetuates a dangerous pattern in crash reporting by removing the real actors of the story, by writing “[it] immediately fled the scene”. A person caused the truck to flee the scene.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, police are seeking the driver and calling this a hit-and-run crash. The Google Street View for this location is below. The entrance to the intermodal yard is between multiple viaducts, which likely affects visibility of people cycling on this street. WGN TV has a news segment.

Transportation commissioner Gabe Klein tweeted yesterday a link to CBS Chicago’s article on the story, adding, “Very sad, why we need protected lanes”. The City hasn’t proposed protected bike lanes on this stretch of road.

View 300 W 47th block in 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 10:01 to add unrelated photo and change what constitutes robot car language in the quoted passage. Updated 19:50 to add the woman’s name and a link to a WGN TV news story.