Category: Neighborhoods

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?

Comment of the day: Even though city may be divided, it’s time to embrace good changes

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Photo of a man riding a bike by Drew Baker, found in the Grid Chicago Flickr group. 

I prefer to see comments like this in my inbox. This comment was posted by “flashabc” on John’s article, Bike facilities don’t have to be the white lanes of gentrification, regarding new bike lanes on Division Street in Humboldt Park:

I ride my bike everywhere in the city from Logan thru Wicker and Into Pilsen. I document the murals and have painted a few myself. I am Puerto Rican that was born in Humboldt and raised in Logan. It is time for the “My Community” to embrace the changes and the good that comes with generation that is growing in and around Humboldt. This city was very divided as i grew up in these neighborhoods. Its just the way it is. But know for the first time in my 45 years i can ride a bike in the middle of the night on Milwaukee Ave. This is only because of the bike movement of the past few years. People working together is the only way this city will ever go foward. It is time for the Humboldt Park community to grow with the rest of the communities around it and not fall into the old fashion hate that has encircled it.

Thank you for your comment.

Grid Shots: Commercial statements

To get this Grid Shots going, I searched our Flickr group for “advertisement” and found only one photo. So I started at the end (the most recent photos) and browsed 10 pages to find this selection of “commercial statements” on our streets. Next week’s topic is “wayfinding”; submit your photos to our group and tag them with “wayfinding”.

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A message to those waiting for the 22/Clark bus in Andersonville at Clark Street and Bryn Mawr avenue says they cannot wait inside the Subway sandwich shop. Photo by Brian Morrissey. Continue reading Grid Shots: Commercial statements

CDOT’s Gabe Klein announces viaduct repaving project

At a press conference in Englewood Friday, CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein announced a $4.1 million project to repave roads under 14 viaducts in 13 different wards across the city (average cost $250,000 per viaduct).

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He explained that seeking federal funding for this project would free up more locally generated funding for neighborhood street repair and repaving projects.  The entire project is federally funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

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Crews are doing complete road reconstruction on approximately 4,500 linear feet of roadway at the following locations (see map below): Continue reading CDOT’s Gabe Klein announces viaduct repaving project

Jose Lopez offers the PRCC’s perspective on the Paseo bike lanes

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Jose Lopez speaks at the opening of West Town Bikes / Ciclo Urbano in 2009. Photo by Vanessa Roanhorse.

Today I contacted Jose Lopez, longtime director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC) for his perspective on the new bike lanes on Division Street along Humboldt Park’s Paseo Boricua business district. He had read yesterday’s post on the subject, and he feels it’s not quite accurate to say that his organization objected to the lanes when the Chicago Department of Transportation first proposed them in 2003.

Continue reading Jose Lopez offers the PRCC’s perspective on the Paseo bike lanes

Bike facilities don’t have to be “the white lanes of gentrification”

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The new buffered bike lanes, still under construction, in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood.

[Update: on Friday 5/11 The Puerto Rican Cultural Center’s Jose Lopez provided his organization’s perspective on the Paseo Boricua bike lanes. Click here to read Lopez’s comments.]

Bicycling doesn’t discriminate. It’s good for people of all ethnicities and income levels because it’s a cheap, convenient, healthy way to get around, and a positive activity for youth and families. So it’s a shame that cycling, especially for transportation, is often seen as something that only privileged white people would want to do. And it’s unfortunate when proposals to add bike facilities in low-income communities of color, which would be beneficial to the people who live there, are viewed as something forced on the community by outsiders.

Continue reading Bike facilities don’t have to be “the white lanes of gentrification”