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 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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Photo of this year’s Frozen Snot Century trip by Adam Wonak
Back in 2005 when Illinois Governor Pat Quinn was second-in-command under Blago, he did cyclists a huge favor by bullying Metra into allowing bikes on board. This opened up a whole new world of options for affordable, car-free road trips because, even after the commuter rail system hiked its fares last year, a weekend pass is a mere seven bucks.
You can hop the Union Pacific North Line all the way up to Kenosha, Wisconsin, then pedal 35 miles to downtown Milwaukee – it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than Amtrak, whose Hiawatha service to Cream City costs $46 roundtrip and doesn’t allow unboxed bicycles. Or bike 30 miles south from the Loop via trails to Munster, Indiana, for gourmet burgers and craft beers at Three Floyds, a heavy metal-loving brewpub, then spin ten miles west to Flossmoor Station Brewery, where you can catch a lift home at the adjacent Metra stop.
Continue reading The Frozen (Molten?) Snot Century: Mission to Madison
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Steve Buchtel, who did a brilliant job of editing the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation’s (CBF) newsletter in the late ’90s and early 2000s, recently left his job as Southland Coordinator with Active Transportation Alliance to take the helm of Trails for Illinois, advocating for new greenways. Cleaning out his files recently he came upon a few cartoons I submitted for the newsletter back in 1998-99. Yes, I was a 28-year-old adult when I drew these doodles of cyclists as mice and drivers as cats, inspired by Art Spiegelman’s Maus comics.
The above cartoon was a reaction to 44th Ward Alderman Bernie Hansen sending a crew out to paint out the bike lanes that the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) had installed on Halsted Street in Boystown. Hansen felt there hadn’t been enough input from the local business owners. Why is it that Chicago aldermen named Bernie tend to be anti-bike? Not long afterwards Hansen retired and was replaced by bike-friendly alderman Tom Tunney, and CDOT re-striped the lanes. This cartoon was a bit too edgy for the CBF News – they didn’t run it.
Continue reading A game of cat & mouse: revisiting John’s old CBF cartoons
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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
It’s a mix of cold and warm views of Chicago and Evanston skylines in this edition of Grid Shots.
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The Evanston skyline is seen in the background from this view over the Chicago Transit Authority’s Howard yard for Red, Yellow, and Purple Line trains. Photo by Alton Park.
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A foggy (or is that haze?) vista of the CTA Green Line taken from Kedzie Avenue. Photo by Ann Fisher.
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Another view of the CTA Green Line along Lake Street, but this time from Ashland Avenue. Photo by Eric Pancer.
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People swim and sunbathe on the concrete beach along the Lakefront Trail, a view of good times that are just around the corner. Photo by Michelle Stenzel.
Next week’s Grid Shots theme is “Art on the street” (April 8). See the full schedule. Submit your photos for consideration to our Flickr group; tag it with “art”.