Author: Steven Vance

Quad bike: How the Community Voicebox travels in Chicago

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Two participants take the community Voicebox quadricycle for a test drive in the park.

Community Voicebox is the winning project of Bill Vassilakis and Jeff Munie from The Air We Breathe competition. It’s about listening to and recording the stories and thoughts of residents when it comes to two major and visible sources of pollution in the Lower West Side neighborhoods of Bridgeport, Little Village, and Pilsen: the Fisk and Crawford coal-burning power plants.

When it comes to documenting residents’ responses to the environmental hazards surrounding them, the Community Voicebox keeps it simple: a quadricycle and an iPad. Read more about the concept and my interview with Bill on Steven Can Plan – today on Grid Chicago I’ll be exploring how Bill and Jeff get the Community Voicebox around town.

Continue reading Quad bike: How the Community Voicebox travels in Chicago

Milwaukee from Ashland to Paulina construction timeline

As I try to better understand construction timelines and processes in Chicago, I’m going to keep track of this project that annoyed people cycling for six months.

Project: Underground utility construction [not sure what kind]

Location: Milwaukee Avenue between Ashland and Paulina

Timeline

February 2011 – Construction project begins (I’m not certain it started in February, but I took my first photo of the project this month).

Sometime here the construction project ends and the surface is replaced with rough concrete. Two points to make here: The construction crew could have floated the concrete more to make it smoother; the concrete only needs a week to cure, and can then be removed and replaced with asphalt.

July 25, 2011 – Rough concrete is replaced with asphalt.

August 2011 – Center and parking lines are striped.

August 13, 2011 – Bicycle shared-lane markings still don’t exist.

September 21, 2011 – Bicycle shared-lane markings added, but incorrectly: they’re too close to the parking stripe.

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Someone riding a bike rolls in and out of construction zone barriers, presumably to avoid the car traffic and the little room between the cars and barriers. 

Unanswered questions

  • Who is responsible for this project?
  • What is the city’s policy on “floating” temporary construction concrete?
  • Do construction projects like this have deadlines?
  • Why aren’t people cycling accommodated better in road construction projects?

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A Chicagoan riding her bike in the construction zone waits for the light at Ashland Avenue to turn green.

What is floating concrete?

Draft: Floating concrete, or to float the concrete, means to drag flat objects over the concrete to push aggregate downwards and bring liquid upwards. The more times this is done, depending on the float tools, the concrete surface will become smoother. A concrete floor in a restaurant has been “finely floated” to create a smooth, shiny finish.

Sidewalks are floated more than road surfaces. After a sidewalk is floated, it is often brushed to create a texture.

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Using a brush to float concrete and add texture. 

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Hand floating the concrete. 

Meet Brandon, owner and operator of Chicago Cargo

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Brandon on Milwaukee Avenue across from Café Mustache, where we met last week.

I briefly introduced Brandon Gobel, a Chicago courier, in Monday’s article about Zipments and how it will change the bike and small-scale messenger industry. I promised we’d talk more about him and his business, Chicago Cargo, today.

Continue reading Meet Brandon, owner and operator of Chicago Cargo

Getting Midwesterners on board with high-speed rail

I was surprised when Vocalo radio host, Molly Adams, asked me about high-speed rail. I imagined we would only talk about local transit and bicycling projects and issues; as a railfan, I was prepared to answer her question. She said, “How realistic is a possible high-speed rail, in the region?”

I confidently replied, “It is finally starting to happen” (read and listen to the full interview). Work finished in September 2010 to replace tracks between Alton, Illinois (north of St. Louis), and Lincoln, Illinois (north of Springfield).

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An Amtrak and Metra train wait in the south part of Union Station in Chicago. Photo by Eric Pancer. Continue reading Getting Midwesterners on board with high-speed rail

Transcript from high-speed rail portion of Vocalo interview

Listen to the high-speed rail segment (MP3) of mine and John’s radio interview with Vocalo, recorded Monday, July 11, 2011. Listen to the full interview. Interviewers are Molly Adams and Brian Babylon.

Molly: With what you know about urban planning, and changes happening, how realistic is a possible high-speed rail, in the region. Maybe, we’ve heard talk of a St. Louis to Chicago, Chicago – Minneapolis, Chicago – Madison, what’s the future on that?

Steven: The Midwest has been planning HSR for decades. It is finally starting to happen. The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), with the railroads that own tracks from Chicago to St. Louis, have been working to replace the tracks to allow for trains to operate at 110 MPH. Before, the top speed was like 75-90 MPH, but we don’t yet have trains capable of going 110 MPH. And the plan is for IDOT to purchase trains that can go that fast. So St. Louis would be the first segment. That’s the only one that really has funding right now. There is funding to upgrade tracks between Chicago and Milwaukee, on the Hiawatha Line, also to increase speeds to 110 MPH.

Brian: What will that do? Tell me the benefits – what will that do? In your two cents.

Steven: The first thing it will do is lower the travel time between the two cities. Then, that has an affect of more customers who didn’t ride the train before, because now they see the attractiveness of a slightly faster ride. Because maybe 5 hours was too long for them to St. Louis, but 4.5 hours makes a little more sense and once we have two tracks to go between Chicago and St. Louis, so trains can bypass each other, they can increase the speed even more, and go down to 4 hours.

Brian: Hmm.

Molly: That sounds like something I’d sign up for. I don’t have a car and I’ve never had a car, so all alternative transportation stuff is very interesting to me but I think when you have a car and you rely on your car for transportation it’s very easy to check out of this. Brian, can you speak to that?

Brian: Yeah, I only like to drive. This whole bike thing to the picnic was cute but I only like to drive.

Molly: Let’s say if it was easier for you to get into town on a train?

Brian: Yeah, but to get where I need to go. Once I get to town, that’s the problem.

Steven: Where’re you coming from?

Molly: Yeah, you guys should make an alternative transportation plan for Brian.

Brian: From the south side. If I can get a bike on the train, comfortably

Molly: He’s right by the 47th Street Green Line stop.

Brian: It’s really bad for me. I’m working on it.

John: You drive downtown to Navy Pier?

Brian: Every day!

Molly: Pay for parking?

Brian: Every day! I could save hundreds.

John: How much does parking cost for employees here?

Brian: Too much. $8. That’s about 40 bucks a week. Gas…He’s laughing!

Molly: Steve’s like shocked and appalled.

Steven: No, $8 is very cheap. I can understand that you would want to drive every day. Because parking pricing policy is one way to discourage driving. And parking seems plentiful here at Navy Pier.

Brian: If it was $20 I would be biking. I would have the nicest legs. In Chicago.

Metra’s storm delays and on-time performance reporting

Storm-related delays affect the three Union Pacific (UP) routes more than the other routes because of UP’s stricter rules. The Chicago Tribune reports that UP will be letting up on this rule just a tad.

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A taxi driver rolls through a flooded viaduct at Montrose and Ravenswood, under the UP-North tracks, in August 2007. Photo by Andre Alforque.

In the same article, the Tribune lets readers know how instrumental it was in encouraging Metra to changes its on-time performance reporting. Before, Metra would produce a systemwide average, but that ignored some lines and runs that had performance ratings a full standard deviation away!