Beyond Chicago – Page 14

Quickly: Mia Birk responds to allegations of “tainted” bike sharing process

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Mia Birk speaks to guests at the Active Transportation Alliance gala and fundraiser on October 13, 2011. Photo by Kelley Ryan.

From BikePortland.org:

Alta Bicycle Share is a subsidiary of Alta Planning + Design, an engineering consultancy whose president, Mia Birk, is the former bike program manager for the City of Portland. Birk, who’s also a principal of Alta Bicycle Share, responded to Squire’s allegations over the weekend. She says there’s no substance behind Squire’s allegations whatsoever.

In a statement to BikePortland, Birk wrote that her company won the bid “fair and square”:

“Alta Bicycle Share, Inc. competed fair and square in a highly competitive process. We are honored to have been selected based on our qualifications and experience launching and operating bike share systems in Melbourne, Arlington VA, Washington, DC, and Boston. At this time, we are focused on contract negotiations and launch preparation to bring Chicago a world-class bike share system in support of the City’s goals.”

Read the full article or our coverage of bike sharing in Chicago.

Missed connections, missed opportunities: cycling in the suburbs

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Ed. note: This post about the difficulties of cycling in the suburbs, and some tongue-in-cheek solutions, is written by contributor Robert Guico, the founder of Carol Stream Bikes, a budding advocacy group. -Steven

An effective bicycle network does a good job of taking bicyclists from one place to another. Out in the suburbs, though, you may find that you’ll have to master a few extra techniques to safely get from your origin to your destination. Continue reading Missed connections, missed opportunities: cycling in the suburbs

Watch the new commercial for bike messenger championships

Thanks to Brandon Gobel for tipping us to this commercial about Chicagoan Christina Peck prepping for the Cycle Messenger World Championships which will go down at Soldier Field on August 4-5, 2012.

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Watch it on YouTube.

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A scene from the race in Tokyo, Japan, in 2009. Photo by pistbiker.

What is an unmarked crosswalk?

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At the corner of Schaumburg and Barrington Roads in Schaumburg, Illinois, sits an unmarked crosswalk. Can you see it? There are no pedestrian signals here, so follow the signals for cars. Good luck.

I posted my “Can we cross Belmont Avenue?” story in full to EveryBlock to get some reactions from neighbors who would be familiar with that specific crossing. As I suspected, there would be confusion about what the laws in Illinois say about the required behaviors of drivers when they encounter people trying to cross the street.

From Active Transportation Alliance promotional materials (pdf), it says,

As of 2010, Illinois drivers must come to a complete stop for pedestrians in all crosswalks. Previous law required them to yield and stop when necessary.

Continue reading What is an unmarked crosswalk?

Thoughts on car sharing and the folding car

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Rendering of the MIT CityCar by Franco Vairani. Post updated 9:57 to add commentary on parking.

This morning, RelayRides will announce it is updating its system on how neighbors share cars. Before, only cars with OnStar and smart card systems could be used (like how I-GO and ZipCar operate now). The change is that anyone with a car can sign up to lend it, for as little as $5 per hour, using a key exchange: the owner and the renter arrange to transfer the key.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this works in practice. I’m going to convince my roommates and friends to sign up their cars. Individual car ownership does not bode well for our society, economy, and environment. The kinds of cars we own have a less significant impact than how we drive them. How we drive is what makes our car culture. The one that costs us more than we can afford, pollutes the environment, and sustains a sedentary lifestyle. Continue reading Thoughts on car sharing and the folding car

Transportation bill update for March 2nd, 2012

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Photos by Jane Healy.

Update March 5, 2012: Cloture vote is Tuesday, March 6th, via Smart Growth America.

Republican leadership in the House has essentially admitted that their multi-year surface transportation bill needs to be reworked. Read all our past coverage on it. The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, our region’s metropolitan planning organization, is doing a great job keeping up with this on their blog and in their weekly newsletter. From today’s newsletter:

Transportation reauthorization update. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives discussed replacing their initial 5-year reauthorization bill, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act (AEIJA), with a reduced 18-month program.

This proposal would fund federal transportation programs through mid-2013, and would reconnect mass transit funding to the Highway Trust Fund. Also this week, the U.S. Senate failed to advance one of the non-germane amendments that have been attached to Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century [MAP-21, the Senate’s version of a surface transportation bill]), the two-year reauthorization bill. Senate Majority Leader Reid announced that he intends to file cloture on the substitute amendment to MAP-21 [cloture requires 60 votes to pass – the Democratic caucus controls only 53 seats]. The vote is scheduled for March 6.