Category: Chicago

Fatality Tracker: Two more pedestrian deaths make November a terribly active month

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 27 (12 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 6 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 8
Skateboard: 1 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)

Two pedestrian deaths since Friday’s Fatality Tracker update make for 5 this month.

On Saturday, November 17, 2012, Christopher Cooper, 44, of Bronzeville, “stepped into northbound traffic on the 7900 block of South Stony Island Avenue at about 11:15 p.m. Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Amina Greer said.” “Police have issued the driver of the Cirrus, 23-year-old Frederick Jackson, a citation for failing to exercise due care.” (Chicago Tribune)

On Monday, November 19, 2012, 8:27 AM at 1501 W Cermak Road. A messaged emailed to me from the Chicago Police Department News Affairs office said:

A private dump truck ran over a 48-year-old male pedestrian as he was crossing in a crosswalk at Laflin & Cermak Rd. The victim was later pronounced DOA at Stroger Hospital.

The 48-year-old driver of the truck, Eduardo Cantu, of the 1800 block of Gunderson Ave, Berwyn, IL, was cited with Running a Stop Sign, Striking a Pedestrian in the Roadway, and Failure to Yield to a Pedestrian in a Crosswalk. At this time, Mr. Cantu is scheduled to appear in Traffic Court December 27, 2012.

This location is the site of the new Cermak and Blue Island Sustainable Streetscape project. This intersection received newly marked, international style crosswalks and a pedestrian refuge island. It’s directly in front of Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen.

Inexpensive gas this week, and the Thanksgiving holiday, means more driving, so November might be as deadly as August was this year.

* The information is only accurate as of this post’s publishing time. View previous Fatality Tracker posts. The Illinois Safety Data Mart reports 28 pedestrian crashes (likely excluding the two in this update) but their information is incomplete until it’s fully processed.

Construction update: CDOT readies Dearborn Street cycle track with bicycle signals

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There are four new signal heads in this photo. The worker I talked to said that one is for left-turning drivers, one is for northbound bicyclists, one is for northbound drivers, and one is for southbound bicyclists. 

Chicago Department of Transportation Bureau of Electrical Operations workers were out in force on Saturday and Sunday installing new traffic signal poles and signals. The Dearborn Street cycle track project, a two-way bike lane on the left side of the one-way road, includes bicycle signal heads pointing north and south. Also new are signal heads for northbound Dearborn Street traffic that will turn left across the cycle track.

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CDOT is using 12-inches diameter bicycle lenses, the same size as non-bicycle lenses. Amsterdam and Copenhagen use much smaller bicycle signal heads.  Continue reading Construction update: CDOT readies Dearborn Street cycle track with bicycle signals

Fatality Tracker: Two senior citizens killed in separate traffic crashes Friday night

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 25 (12 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 6 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 8
Skateboard: 1 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)

The Chicago Tribune reports this morning about two fatal pedestrian crashes.

Crash 1

Friday, November 16, 2012
6 PM
5000 block of N Western Avenue, Lincoln Square

A vehicle struck two people, both of whom were taken to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston.

One of them, 85-year-old Evanston resident Raymond Lending, was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. [It’s not mentioned where the pedestrians and vehicle were when the collision occurred, nor if the driver received any citations.]

Crash 2

Saturday, November 17, 2012
12:43 AM
5200 block of S Cicero Avenue, Archer Heights

[A] 61-year-old man was struck by a vehicle about 12:43 a.m. while crossing the street, [Chicago Police Department News Affair Officer Ron] Gaines said. The man was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead at 1:33 a.m.

The driver in the Archer Heights collision is in police custody, but no charges have been filed yet, Gaines said.

At the end of the year I will be collating the statistics from our Fatality Tracker; a majority of the people who’ve been killed, as pedestrians, are older than 50 years old.

* The information is only accurate as of this post’s publishing time. View previous Fatality Tracker posts.

Once in a decade opportunity: ride the ‘L’ in a private, chartered tour

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A photo from the Soul of Chicago Express tour in 2006. 

There are only a few spots left (just a bit more than 10) on the Central Electric Railfan’s Association “inspection tour” of the Chicago Transit Authority’s ‘L’ system on 2200-series and 5000-series cars on Sunday, November 18. From CERA’s website:

This event will involve a morning enjoying the CTA 2200-series cars on routes they initially served in 1969, and will finish with a tour via the 5000-series ‘L’ cars, now in service on CTA’s Pink and Green Lines.

We will visit parts of the Blue, Pink, Green, Orange, Red and Yellow Lines, visiting various stations for photo opportunities and affording a chance to enjoy a ride on both the system’s oldest and newest train cars for a compare-and-contrast event not been done in recent memory.

CTA has confirmed that the train will pick us up at Jefferson Park on the Blue Line, a break at about 2:30 PM where you’ll be able to go get a bite to eat downtown, and more fun on the train and visiting the CTA’s newest stations at Oakton and Morgan, wrapping up at about 5:30 PM at Morgan/Lake (with access to the ‘L’ system, of course, to return to Jefferson Park).

Tickets are $42 each. If you’re interested, please contact (email preferred) charter organizer Tony Coppoletta immediately to confirm availability: tony@coppoletta.net / 312-685-2446. You will be able to pay in person when you check in at Jefferson Park. Graham Garfield of Chicago-L.org is helping to host this charter, and I will be assisting. This will be my third chartered tour and they provide a unique opportunity to explore the trains and stations, chat with other train enthusiasts, and take tons of photos that at other times might seem weird to fellow passengers.

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If not for the Soul of Chicago Express chartered tour in 2006, I’d probably have never visited the 63rd/Ashland Green Line station in Englewood to see its unique design characteristics. 

Since this is a chartered tour, the route doesn’t have to follow what normal, revenue service trains take. This tour will use the no-longer-used incline between Racine and Illinois Medical District Blue Line stations.

Sunday, November 18, 2012
1030 to ~1730 hours
Time for a lunch break, in the Loop, will be made available.

Meeting location: Jefferson Park (CTA Blue Line station)
Check-in will begin at 0945 hours (receive tickets there, check-in closes after 1015, as the train departs at 1030)

Why Clark Street in Lakeview wasn’t a protected bike lane: it’s 1 foot too narrow

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Clark Street buffered bike lane just north of Diversey Avenue. Photo by Adam Herstein. 

CDOT responded today to my inquiry asking why Clark Street between Diversey Avenue and Addison Avenue received a buffered bike lane and not a protected bike lane. Bikeways planner Mike Amsden writes:

Clark Street (Diversey to Addison) was striped as a buffer protected bike lane, and not a parking protected bike lane, because it is a 51′ roadway throughout the project limits. As you might know, the minimum roadway width for installing barrier protected bike lanes on roadways with one travel lane and one parking lane in each direction is 52′, and the preferred minimum width is 58′. A 52′ roadway allows for a 5′ bike lane, a 3′ buffer zone, an 8′ parking lane and a 10′ travel lane in each direction. However, even when a roadway is 52′, other roadway characteristics and operational considerations must be assessed before installing parking protected bike lanes. These characteristics include the amount of bus, truck and bicycle traffic, loading and delivery needs of local businesses, emergency vehicle access and maintenance requirements.

These standards come from the NACTO* Urban Bikeway Design Guide. If you have not read this guide I recommend doing so as it will likely answer many other questions you may have. The guide can be found here. http://nacto.org/cities-for-cycling/design-guide/

To answer your final question, if we were to recommend a parking protected bike lane on a 51′ roadway, all curbside uses (parking, standing, loading, valet, etc.) would have to be eliminated on one side of the roadway for the entire stretch in order to do so.

1 foot is all it takes, it seems. You can see the relevant NACTO standard in this image. Notice items 4, 5, and 6, that describe the minimum widths for the bike lane, buffer area, and parking lane, respectively.

One-Way Protected Cycle Tracks
Design guidance for One-Way Protected Cycle Tracks in the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide.

Update: Why can’t certain lanes be narrower?

Someone asked in the comments this question, which Amsden anticipated: “We can’t go with a 7′ parking lane because then you’d have a 7′ parking lane next to a 10′ travel lane. People wouldn’t be able to get out of their cars, buses/trucks wouldn’t be able to maneuver, emergency vehicle access would be restricted, etc. That’s why even a 52′ roadway (with a 8′ parking lane next to a 10′ travel lane) is considered really tight.”

* National Association of City Transportation Officials, the yin to American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials yang (AASHTO).

Fall bike lane construction update

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A Marking Specialists work truck in the Marshall Boulevard bike lane it just helped create (they work on weekends, too!). 

Chicago Department of Transportation staff and its contractor Marking Specialists have been busy this summer and fall, striping miles of conventional, buffered, and separated bike lanes in Chicago. This post documents all of the new bike lanes we haven’t yet featured prominently, some of which are likely still under construction as the photos were taken between 1 and 4 weeks ago.

Sacramento Boulevard, 24th Boulevard, Marshall Boulevard

Still to come on this project through Little Village, Lawndale, North Lawndale: Douglas, Independence, and Hamlin Boulevards. It connects with a short, separated bike lane on Jackson Boulevard between Independence Boulevard and Central Park Avenue. The Central Park Avenue bike lane then connects north to separated bike lanes on Lake Street and Franklin Boulevard. Collectively these bike lanes are called “West Side Boulevards”. I like how this new separated bike lane “goes places”: through and to residential neighborhoods, past schools and parks.

People parked their cars in the bike lane, which we’ve found to be typical for under-construction separated bike lanes. The pavement quality issues that Franklin Boulevard suffers from are present on this project as well, in multiple locations (there’s a small bush growing in the bike lane a few feet before your reach a large pothole). I look forward to seeing the ultimate design created at the intersections and high-speed curves in Douglas Park and the pavement issues corrected. This project is likely still under construction.

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A separated bike lane on Marshall Boulevard, looking south at a Pink Line viaduct. It’s parking-protected in some locations. In this photo, new parking spaces are created where none previously existed.  Continue reading Fall bike lane construction update