Category: Grid Shots

Grid Shots: Food

Here’s an interesting study: people who typically arrive by bicycle to bars visit them more often, spend less per visit, but spend more overall in a month than people who typically arrive there by automobile. We might call that “barbikenomics”.

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A man sells mieles from a cart. Photo as seen from the Bloomingdale Trail by Joshua Koonce.

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The Tamale Spaceship food truck parked on Clinton Street while investigating police park their SUV in the bike lane. Photo by Seth Anderson.

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“Meat snack trailer” on the California Avenue sidewalk in Humboldt Park. Photo by Joshua Koonce.

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If you ever shop at the Trader Joe’s in the South Loop (Roosevelt Road and Wabash Avenue), take note that their bicycle parking is hidden in the back. It’s probably more convenient to lock to a fence on the sidewalk. Does the store have an entrance that’s not oriented to the car parking lot? Photo by Dubi Kaufmann.

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There are sometimes bikes like this parked outside the Hannah’s Bretzel locations in the Loop, but I’ve not heard of them being used for deliveries. Photo by Seth Anderson.

Grid Shots: Peculiar

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A man carries a fish by hand on his bicycle. Photo by Seth Anderson. 

I’m again making this Grid Shots post without a scheduled theme so I looked through the latest photos in our Flickr pool to find a topic. It’s “peculiar”. Just some oddities I noticed.

Did you know there’s a city law about how many hands you must have on the handlebars? It’s Municipal Code of Chicago 9-52-060, Carrying articles on bicycles:

No person operating a bicycle shall carry any package, bundle or article which prevents the rider from keeping at least one hand upon the handlebars.

Notice that it doesn’t preclude someone from riding without any hands on the handlebars provided they are not carrying a package, bundle, or article. A different law may regulate that.

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A little girl transports a stroller on the Illinois Prairie Path in Elmhurst. Photo by Clark Maxwell.

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A guy bikes with a snorkel in his mouth and goggles on his forehead. Perhaps he’s preparing to ride his bike into Lake Michigan. Photo by Mike Travis.

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Mayor Richard M. Daley was mildly obsessed with Paris, France. One of the Parisian transit agencies, Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP), donated a Hector Guimard-designed, Art Nouveau-style Paris Metro entrance which was installed at the Van Buren Street Metra station along Michigan Avenue. These entrances are ubiquitous in Paris, but they are used only at Métropolitain stations (most like the Chicago ‘L’), not at regional rail stations.

Other “Paris in Chicago” examples: Daley created the landscaped medians on Ashland Avenue, Madison Street, and other roads after seeing them in Paris. He tried to get J.C. Decaux, an advertising company that manages street furniture and bus stops in Chicago (a French company) to build bike sharing in Chicago after a visit to Paris in 2007, during which he rode a Vélib’ bicycle. Photo by Michelle Stenzel.

Grid Shots: People on the platform

Since we don’t have a schedule of Grid Shots themes to go on, I looked at the latest photos people have added to our Flickr group. This one caught my eye and prompted today’s topic: people on the platform.

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Photo by Mike Travis, who captioned the photo with, “Don’t look at me, Kid. The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is right in front of you!” Continue reading Grid Shots: People on the platform

Grid Shots: Community gardens

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The @ward1bike #Twitterbike at a garden. Photo by John Lankford. 

After some debating with John Lankford about this, I gave in to create the Grid Shots theme of “community gardens”. He sent me the first photo to feature (above). The bottom line, that won me over, was that a lot of people bike to their community gardens. I’ve even biked to a community garden myself, with Brandon Gobel and Jana Kinsman, to deliver beehives.  Continue reading Grid Shots: Community gardens

Grid Shots: Transportation workers

Transportation workers, working. They work in all kinds of environments. Right now (er, this month) in Chicago, workers are designing, engineering, constructing, and planning for new train stations (a new station opened last month, Cermak is next), new bikeways, highways (Elgin-O’Hare Expressway will be getting a little closer to O’Hare), and putting new ‘L’ trains into service (those 5000-series cars that disappeared for a while are slowly coming back after repairing their defects).

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A CTA employee assists the 2008 tour of the Chicago ‘L’ during the American Association of Geographers conference.

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CDOT staff Mike Amsden and Scott Kubly at a public meeting in Hyde Park; I believe he’s explaining bike sharing.  Continue reading Grid Shots: Transportation workers

Grid Shots: River and bridge edition

I’m in Richmond, Virginia, currently, biking up and down these dang HILLS. I’ll have a post up later this week about bike culture here (this is my first time in this region of the country). So this Grid Shots about bridges and the river is super short, with little commentary. Feel free to add your own captions in the comments – I’ve numbered the photos for easy reference.

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Photo 1 by Eric Rogers. 

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Photo 2 by Michelle Stenzel.  Continue reading Grid Shots: River and bridge edition