Steven Vance – Page 67

Weekend events: two ciclovías, two Bloomingdale Trail charrettes, and two bike rides

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A car-free Ridge Avenue in Evanston, Illinois. Photo by Esther Chicago.

It’s a busy weekend for bicycling events and the next step in the Bloomingdale Trail design process. The weather forecast on AccuWeather.com shows sunny and 60°F on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Open Streets
10 AM to 3 PM
1 N State Street

Enjoy the ultimate urban playground as State Street opens for pedestrians only to play, walk, bike and enjoy healthy recreation in the heart of the Loop on a seven-block stretch of State Street, from Lake Street to Van Buren Street, into an urban playground for all ages, Saturday, October 1, from 10 AM to 3 PM.
Continue reading Weekend events: two ciclovías, two Bloomingdale Trail charrettes, and two bike rides

They’re not accidents, and we don’t have robotic cars

Updated October 5, 2011, to add a reference to a new article that fails to mention that the car involved in a crash had a driver.

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The headline for this crash might read: “Taxi wanted to avoid Lake Shore Drive congestion by taking the Lakefront Trail, makes wrong turn”. Photo by Andrew Ciscel.

Language and word choice is powerful. It influences you to interpret a story in a specific way – or another. Monday’s headline on the Chicago Sun-Times website reads, “Police seek vehicle in fatal Uptown hit-and-run” and I thought, “Aren’t the police also interested in the driver of that vehicle?”*

And I read the first paragraph:

Police have released surveillance photos of a car that plowed into a woman crossing the street in Uptown early Saturday, then reportedly backed up and struck her again before fleeing the scene. The pedestrian died eight hours later.

“Oh, the police are looking for a car that drives itself. Of course!” I exclaimed to myself. “I guess one of Google’s experimental cars has come to Chicago”. But I was wrong as in the fifth paragraph, the unnamed author of this article described the crash: Continue reading They’re not accidents, and we don’t have robotic cars

Imprecisions in widely shared Reuters article on Chicago biking

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People ride their bikes across the point at which Milwaukee Avenue was measured to have a mode share of 22% bicycles.

These are important to mention because they will be shared again and again. While nothing was inaccurate, there was definitely space to clarify and expand. Original article.

1. “[Gabe] Klein hopes the percentage of trips taken by bike will rise from under 2 percent to 5 percent”

The percentage of “trips taken by bike” (for any purpose) is not known. We only know the percentage of trips taken by bike to work, and it stands at 1.4% right now.

The goal of the Bike 2015 Plan is to have 5 percent of all trips under 5 miles be by bike. But we won’t know when we achieve that because we lack baseline data: no survey collects the data on trips by bike for all purposes and categorizes them by distance – there was a household travel survey in 2007-2008 from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), but only for counties and not Chicago. I have written many times before about the “missing data” and baseline data problem: One, two, three, four.

Continue reading Imprecisions in widely shared Reuters article on Chicago biking

Rollin’ beyond coal

On Saturday, I joined a group of people at Daley Plaza who want the Chicago City Council and Rahm Emanuel to pass the Clean Power Ordinance for a demonstration bike ride to Dvorak Park, across Cermak Road from the Fisk coal power plant. Roll Beyond Coal was a short ride from the Loop to Pilsen, through the rain and sun, and with a police escort. It was a small affair, but we joined up with a larger group of people at the park for a couple of speakers and a march through the neighborhood. This post is a photo essay – read more coverage of the Clean Power Ordinance on Steven Can Plan. Photos are posted in chronological order.

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More than 50 people rode in the rain to demonstrate to aldermen and the mayor their desire for cleaner air in Chicago. Continue reading Rollin’ beyond coal

Grid Shots: The view from CTA bridges

Bridges at Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train stations over the tracks are becoming extinct. When the Belmont Brown/Red/Purple line station was rebuilt for the Brown Line Capacity Expansion project, the bridge at the south end was removed.

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I took this photo in 2006 from the Belmont footbridge, not long before it was closed to passengers and then demolished.

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Adams and Wabash, Brown/Pink/Green/Orange/Purple lines. Photo by Clark Maxwell.

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Madison and Wabash, Brown/Pink/Green/Orange/Purple lines. Photo by Clark Maxwell.

View four more photos taken from CTA footbridges.

Next steps for 35th Ward student active transportation plan

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I attended the first public meeting for the 35th Ward student active transportation plan, being managed by Sam Schwartz Engineering and Active Transportation Alliance (ActiveTrans), but left without understanding what the planners envision next, based on the outcomes of the meeting.

I asked Adolfo Hernandez at ActiveTrans about this. He replied:

The next steps include Sam Schwartz Engineering reviewing the community’s input and developing a set of approaches to improve walking and biking access to specific parks and schools within the ward. That set of strategies will be presented as a plan to the community in a public meeting. At that meeting, the public will have an opportunity to hear about the plan and its recommendations as well as help identify priority projects for implementation.

The plan will include some recommendations for short, mid and long term projects but we really want the community to guide prioritizing projects. The alderman [Rey Colón] has agreed to use the plan as a guide for making the ward safer for biking and walking. The alderman has committed to using some menu funds as well as leveraging other funding sources to help implement the plan.

Mark de la Vergne, at Sam Schwartz Engineering added:

During this time, we’ll also be working with the Alderman’s office and Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) to discuss the potential recommendations and how they may fit within current efforts.

I will inform you when the next meeting is scheduled.