Category: Grid Shots

Grid Shots: Skateboarding in the streets edition

Skateboarding is a very sustainable transportation mode, although probably not as efficient as cycling. We still recommend it. I had already published many of my photos featuring people skateboarding, but I wanted to show pictures from other photographers in Chicago. I searched through my Flickr contacts for “skateboarding” and found over 1,100 photos – awesome. One of the photos was this guy skateboarding in Washington, D.C., holding two bicycle wheels. Perhaps delivering them to a friend, or to a bike shop to be fixed.

Read to the end to see our upcoming Grid Shots photo themes, all suggested by contributor Michelle of Bike Walk Lincoln Park. I’m posting these now so you can get your ready photos ready and onto our Flickr group.

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Photo of two people crossing the street, one on his skateboard, the other carrying hers, by Mike Travis. Continue reading Grid Shots: Skateboarding in the streets edition

Grid Shots: 1,000 photos in our Flickr group

Thank you for adding 1,000 photos of sustainable transportation in Chicago to our Flickr group. When you add your photos to our Flickr group, they will appear on the sidebar (scroll down and to the left) as well as on our photos page. And we look there to find photos to lead articles. Here are the latest five that were added.

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Photo of a Metra train on the BNSF track (to/from Aurora, Illinois) by Ben. Continue reading Grid Shots: 1,000 photos in our Flickr group

Grid Shots: Cycling snow commute

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“A bicyclist hauling it in Edgewater, in the midst of the snowstorm. On Broadway just north of Granville.” Photo by Joseph Dennis. 

I was home during the snow storm on Friday and I read people’s commute experiences on various social networks. Here are some photos to celebrate the successful and less successful rides on the bicycle. Continue reading Grid Shots: Cycling snow commute

Grid Shots: Water taxi edition

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A Chicago Water Taxi travels south on the Chicago River from Ping Tom Park in Chinatown, just south of 18th Street, towards downtown. Photo by Eric Pancer. 

Are water taxis part of sustainable transportation?

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) helped Chicago Water Taxi (Wendella) get a Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grant to buy a new boat in 2000. It’s easy to understand their efforts to reduce congestion on the road if people who normally drive the route of a water taxi now take the boat. And same for the air quality if the emissions of its engine, measured in person-miles, is better than that of an automobile. But what about its influence on water quality? The Environmental Protection Agency describes all the ways in which boating pollutes water. An article in the Active Transportation Alliance’s Mode Shift newsletter explained water taxi transportation as another local transit option. Continue reading Grid Shots: Water taxi edition

Grid Shots: The variety of pedestrian bridges over Lake Shore Drive

A reader on our Facebook page suggested we feature the 35th Street pedestrian bridge, over the Illinois Central railroad tracks and connected to a second bridge over Lake Shore Drive, in this week’s Grid Shots*. Here’re several other interesting and, in some cases, dilapidated pedestrian bridges over Lake Shore Drive. All photos are by Eric Rogers, who contributes many of his great photos to our Flickr group.

3500 S Lake Shore Drive

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The 35th Street pedestrian bridge is particularly uninviting; it links the neighborhood at 35th and Cottage Grove to the Lakefront Trail. It should have been replaced by now. Continue reading Grid Shots: The variety of pedestrian bridges over Lake Shore Drive