Category: Beyond Chicago

Island delights: a bike tour of Blue Island with Active Trans’ Jane Healy

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Jane Healy, Mike Healy and Jason Berry.

[This piece also appeared in Checkerboard City, John’s weekly transportation column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets in print on Wednesday evenings.]

Jane Healy is a diehard booster of the blue-collar south suburb of Blue Island, and she’s the ultimate biker mama. [I borrowed this phrase from J. Harry Wray’s book Pedal Power, which also profiles Jane, since I couldn’t think of a better term to describe her.] Along with her husband Mike and kids Will, Katie and Genevieve, she usually pedals to get around this scruffy railroad town of some 22,500 people, located just south of Chicago and straddling the Calumet-Sag Channel. Jane is board president of the Active Transportation Alliance advocacy group, and she’s been spearheading Blue Island’s current bike boom, helping get hundreds of local kids jazzed about cycling.

Continue reading Island delights: a bike tour of Blue Island with Active Trans’ Jane Healy

Infographics show CTA’s operating revenues and where fares go

The Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Abogo project, to inform people across the country about the link between their housing and transportation costs, created two infographics that show the source of the Chicago Transit Authority’s funds for operating, as well as how your $2.25 is divvied.

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Provided by Center for Neighborhood Technology. 

This infographic shows the funding sources for the CTA’s 2012 estimated operating budget. The CTA is required by state law to obtain 50% of its operating revenues from fares, but it appears that won’t be the case. The “Statutory Required Contribution” comprises the City of Chicago’s $3 million and Cook County’s $2 million.  Continue reading Infographics show CTA’s operating revenues and where fares go

Put Chicago on the path to an electrified Metra

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Ed. note: Roland Solinski is a graduate student of architecture at Tulane University. “I am a Chicagoan by birth and the city runs in my blood. I’m fascinated by all aspects of urban design and urban systems, but especially transit systems and public space.” Photo is of a southbound Metra Electric train. 

In November of 2010, the Chicago Tribune published an article that shocked Metra commuters. In it, Tribune reporters revealed that massive quantities of diesel exhaust were hanging in the air on platforms at Union Station and Ogilvie Transportation Center. Worse, the atmosphere inside each railcar contained the same exhaust at even higher concentrations – 72 times that of a normal city street.

In numerous other cities, commuters do not need to worry about harmful exhaust fumes, because their trains run off of electric power. In fact, many cities installed rail electrification systems at the turn of the last century specifically to eliminate toxic smoke emissions, including the Illinois Central’s line right here in Chicago, now called Metra Electric. Continue reading Put Chicago on the path to an electrified Metra

Grid Shots: Wayfinding

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A “City Information Sign” shows CTA lines and a map of a large area around Michigan Avenue and the Chicago River. Photo by Michelle Stenzel. 

Wayfinding is a set of devices that we use to orient ourselves in the current space and to build a journey, no matter how short (downstairs to upstairs) or long (kayaking from San Francisco to Tokyo because of a suggestion made by Google Maps). Two weeks ago Anne Alt wrote about how the quality of wayfinding at the LaSalle Street Metra Station is a weak aspect of the station’s design. This is a collection of wayfinding photos from the Grid Chicago group on Flickr. Continue reading Grid Shots: Wayfinding

Can bike shop deserts be eradicated on Chicago’s South Side?

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Johnny and John Stallworth at John’s Hardware & Bicycle Shop.

[This piece also runs in Urban Velo magazine.]

Pedaling down Halsted Street into Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, I smell the unmistakable aroma of Harold’s Chicken as I pass an outpost of the South Side chain whose logo features a chef chasing a rooster with a hatchet. After an SUV speeds by me booming hip-hop, I pull up to John’s Hardware & Bicycle Shop, 7350 S. Halsted, and admire the old-fashioned, hand-painted sign, featuring John Stallworth’s smiling, bearded face and his no-nonsense slogan, “If we don’t have it you don’t need it.”

Continue reading Can bike shop deserts be eradicated on Chicago’s South Side?

Ira David Levy’s “Pedal America” show pushes pedaling to a broader audience

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[This piece also appeared in Checkerboard City, John’s weekly transportation column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets on Wednesday evenings.]

As a sustainable transportation devotee, sometimes I have to remind myself that not everyone in this country is as fanatical about biking as I am. But “Pedal America,” a new travel series on PBS created and produced by Chicagoan Ira David Levy, aims to spread the gospel of cycling to the unconverted. “I think that with a lot of bike advocacy, we tend to talk to each other, people who are already enthused,” he says over drinks at a Gold Coast café. “But if you’re going to reach the masses you need to find a way that does not come across as overly political. So I work in a little bit of advocacy in each episode but I try not to be too preachy.” Continue reading Ira David Levy’s “Pedal America” show pushes pedaling to a broader audience