Category: Grid Bits

Grid Bits: Street crossings

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Queen’s Landing won’t look like this on Friday: there’ll be a crosswalk and signal here. 

As you consider how you’ll walk to the store tomorrow for some gifts from our guide, know that several people are trying to make street crossings safer. This post is a roundup of different news about how street crossings are changing (for the better) in Chicago.

1. Queen’s Landing

I briefly reported on this two Sundays ago in Grid Shots: Pedestrian access edition. The new crosswalk opened today.

2. Crossing Western Avenue in the 47th Ward

In Alderman Pawar’s email newsletter on Wednesday, he mentioned that he requested CDOT to improve pedestrian signal timings at Western and Sunnywide, Western and Irving Park, and Western and Waveland. “Over the summer I learned that families, school children and senior citizens in our ward have experienced trouble crossing [these intersections]”. Continue reading Grid Bits: Street crossings

Grid Bits: UP-North construction to restart, taxi drivers and street safety, new CTA Loop station

John and I are still gathering information for our Open Streets article, which will be co-written and published Tuesday. Also on Tuesday is another public meeting about the Bloomingdale Trail, where the designers and consultants will showcase the results of this past weekend’s open house and charrettes (I went on Saturday). I will publish an article about the Tuesday presentation on Thursday, October 6. There are five stories in this edition of Grid Bits.

Streets

(1) Taxi drivers

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Click on the photo to read the photographer’s caption. I found this by searching on Flickr for “stupid taxi chicago” in order to find people’s opinions. Photo by Nick Normal. 

The Chicago Tribune reported on September 23, 2011, that many of the tickets Chicago police give to taxi drivers are dismissed in court. When a taxi driver receives commits three moving violations in one year, they risk having their chauffeur’s license not renewed. Continue reading Grid Bits: UP-North construction to restart, taxi drivers and street safety, new CTA Loop station

Grid Bits: Englewood railroad yard; Metra asks passengers to watch conductors

In Grid Bits for Tuesday, September 20, 2011, Metra wants customers to report on customers and conductors who miss fares; Evanston wants to build an infill Yellow Line station; additional automobile crash analysis; Chicago police are looking for a hit-and-run driver; a railroad plans to expand by buying and demolishing homes in Englewood. There are 6 stories in this post.

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Photo of a 5000-series Chicago Transit Authority train car at Howard station by Eric Pancer.  Continue reading Grid Bits: Englewood railroad yard; Metra asks passengers to watch conductors

Grid Bits: Electric car charging network; pinup chicks calendar

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One of the new electric vehicle charging stations popping up at Walgreens around Chicago. 

Driving

Walgreens is adding charging stations for electric vehicles at many of its Chicago-area stores and around the country. I read about a Chargepoint station at the Walgreens nearest me (2744 N California) when I was browsing my block on EveryBlock. Then I read about this and other stations around the city, including at Soldier Field, on Curbed Chicago. Continue reading Grid Bits: Electric car charging network; pinup chicks calendar

Grid Bits: Tolls rising, BRT on Western, Andersonville needs bike parking

Grid Bits is a new series I’m experimenting with – it comes in the same vein as Grid Shots. While Shots features photos our Flickr group contributors take, Bits is a collection of abstracts on diverse topics around Chicagoland. Each paragraph is a new story.

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Photo of project advertisement in front of the future Oakton Street station.

Continue reading Grid Bits: Tolls rising, BRT on Western, Andersonville needs bike parking