Category: Chicago

Get Lit lights up 115 bikes in its first distribution event

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Father and daughter on their custom scraper bikes, with Skim, a volunteer. 

Because of the gracious donations of Jim Freeman and 12 donors, Get Lit held its first bike light distribution event on Friday, June 8, in Lincoln Park. Ten volunteers (Calvin, Brandon, Erik, Wilbur, Skim, Adrianna, Santiago, Jim, Rebecca, and myself) distributed lights to 115 people at Diversey Avenue and Orchard Street, and Clark Street and Diversey Avenue for two hours. The recipients included food delivery guys, couples on dates (or so I guess), a father and daughter riding through the neighborhood, and countless others who didn’t know state law (and the desire to be seen) requires a front headlight.

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Calvin installs a light. 

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This recent graduate of DePaul’s law school is happy to know he now rides a bike legally at night. 

See the full photoset.

One of the Get Lit donors has been randomly chosen to receive the Monkeylectric spoke lights I advertised in May. Derek R., please email Grid Chicago to claim it (you should have received an email announcing you as the winner). Get Lit is a partnership with Active Transportation Alliance and we are now collecting donations to put on a second event in 2012: you can donate online at Active Transportation Alliance’s special Get Lit website, mail your donation to their office with “Get Lit” in the memo (address at the end), or hand it to me.

Do you have an idea of where the next Get Lit distribution event should be? Would your business or organization like to sponsor a Get Lit event in a certain area or at an already-scheduled event? Contact me.

Active Transportation Alliance
9 W Hubbard, Suite 402
Chicago, IL 60654

Talk, Forrest, talk! The CTA chief responds to our transit questions

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Steven and Forrest Claypool.

Yesterday the Chicago Transit Authority gave a handful of transportation bloggers the opportunity to meet with CTA President Forrest Claypool at the agency’s headquarters and ask him about the state of the agency and its future projects. Steven and I were joined by our colleagues Patrick Barry, filling in for Kevin O’Neil from CTA Tattler, and Kevin Zolkiewicz from Chicago Bus, who also contributes to Grid Chicago.

During the freewheeling 45-minute discussion Mr. Claypool patiently answered any and all of our queries about the transit authority’s sometimes controversial decisions. He was particularly candid about the upcoming Jeffery Corridor Bus Rapid Transit initiative, volunteering his opinion that this pilot project isn’t really bus rapid transit, but rather a step in the right direction. Here are a few of Steven’s and my questions and Mr. Claypool’s responses.

Continue reading Talk, Forrest, talk! The CTA chief responds to our transit questions

Take back the bike lane

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Take it back. The bike lane that is. Take it back from those who park in it, put their valet signs in it, park valet cars in it, pickup and drop off passengers in it, or generally illegally block the bike lane, forcing cyclists to merge into faster moving traffic to avoid it.

Two weeks ago, feeling sick and tired of the disrespect people have for facilities the City of Chicago and its funding partners (mainly the federal government) have built for the exclusive use of people riding bicycles, I confronted three people about their parking in the bike lane.

Continue reading Take back the bike lane

Wells Street buffered bike lane construction began today (photos)

Several #bikeCHI tweeters noticed in the past few days that existing bike lane stripes on Wells Street had been ground out (probably last Friday). Today, new bike lane striping was installed south of Chicago Avenue, to at least Ohio Street, in the River North neighborhood.

Photos are from Adam Herstein. They start at the north end of the project and move south (in the direction of travel). Wells Street is one-way south of Erie Street (until Congress Parkway) and two-way north of Erie Street.

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Wells and Superior Streets. 

Continue reading Wells Street buffered bike lane construction began today (photos)

My first time driving a hybrid vehicle from I-GO Car Sharing

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On Saturday I needed to pick up a bunch of houseplants from a home improvement store and it seemed like it would be a hassle to carry them safely on my Fresh Air bicycle trailer. Also, after a lot of procrastinating, I recently got my Chicago Card Plus, which provides access to the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and I-GO Car Sharing, replaced after the old one cracked and stopped functioning months ago. So this seemed like a good opportunity to try out my new card by checking out a vehicle from I-GO, the nonprofit service operated by the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

When I logged onto the I-GO website, I noticed that there were a couple of locations near my home in Logan Square with standard Toyota Prius hybrid cars. I-GO also offers plug-in electric hybrid Priuses, which they say can get 100 mile-per-gallon for trips under forty miles. This results in up to two-thirds lower fuel costs and emissions than the standard Prius, I-GO says, but currently all of the plug-in hybrids are located downtown. The service also recently added several Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan LEAF electric cars to their fleet.

Continue reading My first time driving a hybrid vehicle from I-GO Car Sharing

Bicycle crashes: A presentation at the Transport Chicago conference

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I assisted Nabil Nazha in gathering data and developing a methodology for the geographic analysis of bicycle crashes at intersections needed to complete his master’s thesis from the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA). I graduated from CUPPA in 2010. We submitted his paper to the Transport Chicago conference and it was accepted; see Session 1 – A Safety Dance. He was out of the country at the time of the conference so I gave this presentation alone. 

[slide 1 – intro]

From 2007 to 2010 there were 6,705 bicyclists involved in 6,664 crashes involving at least one bicycle and one automobile. A majority of bicyclists received injuries and 20 bicyclists died . Bicycle crashes at intersections are the topic of the paper, Safe Cycling in Chicago. Continue reading Bicycle crashes: A presentation at the Transport Chicago conference