Art on the street includes street art, but the reverse isn’t true.
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Oak Park Arts District cross walk. Photo by I BIKE UIC / April Yvonne.
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Bloomingdale Trail mural by Jeff Zoline. The quantity of art will only be increasing in the next few years as the viaduct undergoes a transformation to become a trail and linear park. Continue reading Grid Shots: Art on the street edition
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Photo taken by Melissa.
A smattering of #bikeCHI posts from the last half of (warm) March I forgot to post earlier.
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Follow us on Twitter: @stevevance, @greenfieldjohn, @gridchicago.
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Photo of people descending stairs at State and Lake by Ann Fisher.
Taking a cue from Twitter where #FF means “Follow Friday” and people post the @names of others they recommend you follow, I am recommending some sites from our links page that you should follow.
Should I have recommended someone else? Make your own suggestion in the comments and we’ll consider listing that site on our Links page. All of them are also members of the Grid Chicago Network, a sort of RSS reader about local sustainable transportation news and issues.
You can follow us on Twitter:
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This photo of a police SUV parked in the Kinzie Street protected bike lane was included in the letter. Photo taken by Tumblr user 122782.
I just received another report from a reader about people driving in the 18th Street protected bike lane, so it’s obvious to me that dangerous driving behavior is still happening.
A month ago, Anne Alt, president of the Chicago Cycling Club and author of our excellent, two-part series about cycling on the south side, wrote to me that she had drafted a letter written to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, transportation commissioner Gabe Klein, and police superintendent Garry McCarthy to advocate for increased police enforcement of the City’s (pretty solid) traffic laws. I helped edit parts of the letter, gathered some signatures in support of the letter at the Chicago Bike Swap, and even paid for postage. The letter has been sent, and pursuant to the Grid Chicago mission statement (“taking a stand on issues”), I’m publishing it here. Continue reading Can we get some police to enforce traffic laws? A letter
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One of the buses Pace uses on the Stevenson Expressway shoulders during rush hours. The two routes have seen a lot of demand and Pace is responding by adding more runs. Photo by Ann Fisher.
On Wednesday, people will gather at the Chicago Transit Authority headquarters (567 W Lake Street) to protest “inadequate funding and policies”, according to the Red Eye. Members from at least two groups (LVEJO and Citizens Taking Action) will join to protest public-private partnerships and to support laid off bus drivers. This is part of a larger National Day of Action for Public Transportation called by Occupy Boston.
They are protesting in the wrong location. They should be rallying at locations where there are people who can do something about underfunded transit: the offices of elected officials, like at City Hall and those of state and federal Congresspersons scattered around town. Continue reading Protest against low transit funding on Wednesday is directed at the wrong audience
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Alyson Fletcher counts cyclists on 18th Street.
The need for knowing how many people are cycling in Chicago should be obvious: to plan a good bikeway network that considers where people are already cycling; and to track the progress of the Bike 2015 Plan and other related plans. There are multiple needs to count cyclists in Chicago, for civic planning, academic research, and business promotion. On Tuesday morning and afternoon last week, volunteers at several downtown Chicago intersections were armed with pencil and paper to count people cycling (towards downtown in the morning, away from in the afternoon).
The City’s bike count program is now getting into a groove of consistent and periodic tabulating after a time of sporadic counts in different locations (mostly for single facility analysis). A good bike count program is permanent, counting people at the same times on a regular basis at the same location. The new program, which started in 2011, will count cyclists at the same places in downtown Chicago, at the same time each month. Not only can the City use this information to plan a network (and hopefully more bikeways in the Loop), but it can be used to track the impact of bikeways and cyclists on ridership and traffic, respectively. Continue reading Bike counts are important to businesses and in evaluating our progress