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Pavement to the people: an update on CDOT’s new public space initiatives

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The People Spot at Little Black Pearl art center in Bronzeville. Photo courtesy of CDOT.

[This piece also appeared in Checkerboard City, John’s weekly transportation column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets in print on Thursdays.]

Local pundits like ex-Sun-Times columnist Mark Konkol and the Tribune’s John McCarron and John Kass have trashed the city’s new protected bike lanes as a waste of space on the streets. But Chicagoans tend to overlook the massive amount of room on the public way given over to moving and parking private automobiles.

A new Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) initiative called Make Way for People is dreaming up more imaginative uses of the city’s asphalt and concrete, creating new public spaces that are energizing business strips. In partnership with local community leaders, the program is taking parking spots, roadways, alleys and under-used plazas and transforming them into People Spots, People Streets, People Alleys and People Plazas, respectively, lively neighborhood hangouts.

“It’s not a top-down program where we come in and say, ‘We think you need a People Spot or a People Street,’” says Janet Attarian, head of the department’s Streetscape and Sustainable Design section. “Instead we say, ‘We want to help you build community and culture and place and, look, we just created a whole set of tools that wasn’t available before.’”

Continue reading Pavement to the people: an update on CDOT’s new public space initiatives

Fatality Tracker: Senior woman killed in hit-and-run, driver not yet apprehended

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 22 (10 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 5 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 7

Bessie Manning, 85, was crossing Division Street, southbound on Waller Avenue in the Austin community area, when she was struck by a “dark-colored” car and likely died immediately. Police are looking for the driver of the car. The Chicago Tribune has more details.

As a reminder, the speed of a motor vehicle involved in a crash with an unshielded human (i.e. a pedestrian or bicyclist) is the greatest determining factor of injury or death in that crash (the speed of the vehicle in this crash hasn’t been reported but now is as a good a time as any to publicize it). Simply put:

20 MPH at crash impact: 5% chance of fatality
30 MPH, 37-45%
40 MPH, 83-85%
50 MPH, nearly 100% chance of fatality

View Waller Avenue and Division Street in larger map

* The information is only accurate as of this post’s publishing time and includes only people who died in the Chicago city limits. View previous Fatality Tracker posts.

CDOT cuts ribbon on greenest street in America

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Looking east along Cermak Road at the Benito Juarez Community Academy along the “greenest street in America”.

Okay, we first need to discuss the hyperbole in the headline. “Greenest street in America”. Really? At a press conference on Tuesday, October 9, in front of the Benito Juarez Community Academy, politicians and city staff described the features and collective effort to get to this point. I talked to David Leopold, project manager for the Cermak/Blue Island Sustainable Streetscape at the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) to understand how Cermak Road and Blue Island Avenue in the Pilsen neighborhood could be considered the greenest street in America.

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Watch the press conference on Vimeo.

My first question, “What’s the second greenest street in America?” He replied, “We don’t admit that there is one”.

All kidding aside, it really is, he explained. CDOT has been experimenting with sustainable landscaping, construction, and pavement techniques for more than half a decade. Its green alley program is probably the most well-known. It also operates the sustainable backyards program. Another project is the permable pavement parking lot at Desplaines and Polk Streets at the new location for Maxwell Street Market. Next to the parking lot is a bioswale (landscaping that naturally absorbs water, keeping it from our sewers that combine waste water and runoff) with underground monitoring tools.

In 2009, to start off the project, CDOT installed monitoring tools along Cermak Road, before visible construction began. Then came a bioswale at the high school (1450 W Cermak Road), smog-fighting bike and parking lanes on Blue Island Avenue, and multiple bioswales along both streets to divert runoff from the sewers. To cap it off, information kiosks with street lighting powered by wind turbines and solar panels were added as well as new sidewalks and crosswalks.

Back to it being the greenest street in America, Leopold said that they couldn’t find any other street that used as many sustainable techniques in a single project. The leaders in sustainable street design are in the Pacific Northwest (Portland and Seattle, specifically), but those were more focused on plantings and water diversion while Cermak/Blue Island has transportation elements as well.

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After the ribbon cutting. View all photos from before, during, and after construction.

Updated October 14 to add links and refine narrative.

Pace picks up CTA’s slack while increasing service in Chicago and suburbs

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A Pace route 755 or 855 coach bus heads towards the Damen Avenue on-ramp at the Stevenson Expressway. In the budget, Pace will increase service on these popular routes and build a park-and-ride in the I-55 highway corridor.

In contrast to the noted absence of cooperation at the Regional Transportation Authority, the “overseer” of Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and Pace transit agencies, Pace included in its budget announcement that some of its routes will change to carry passengers who will lose their CTA route on December 16. (CTA and Pace have also partnered to offer Ventra, an open fare payment system that will eliminate magnetic strip fare cards.) Pace will provide service for the following CTA routes:

56A/North Milwaukee
17/Westchester
49A/South Western
64/Foster-Canfield
69/Cumberland-East River
81W/ West Lawrence
90N/North Harlem

Additionally, Pace will not be changing fares even as it increases service, including on the I-55 Stevenson routes that are allowed to drive on the shoulder during rush hour (in the peak direction) when speeds are lower than 30 MPH. Pace will hold 13 public hearings about the budget; the first is Monday, October 22, from 11 AM to 1 PM, at the Sulzer Regional Library, 4455 N. Lincoln, in Chicago.

CBS2 Chicago quoted Pace board member Vernon Squires urging “Pace planners to continue to review the route map with CTA to see where other areas of duplication can be eliminated”. This is the kind of job a regional authority should be doing, but it would be a good exercise for any of the RTA’s three service boards.

Ride into the safety zone: new traffic calming and ped safety treatments

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Englewood resident Denise King tries out the new refuge island at 63rd and Claremont.

[This piece also appeared in Checkerboard City, John’s weekly transportation column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets in print on Thursdays.]

Running late as usual, I hop on my bicycle and sprint south from Logan Square, fortunately with a sweet tailwind at my back. I’m heading to the ribbon cutting for new Children’s Safety Zone traffic-calming and pedestrian-safety treatments at Claremont Academy Elementary School, 2300 West 64th Street in West Englewood.

The city has 1,500 of these safety zones, designated areas within one-eighth mile of schools and parks. The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) is planning to install additional infrastructure at dangerous intersections within these sectors to discourage speeding and make crossing easier. Currently there are about 3,000 pedestrian crashes a year in the city, with about 800 involving kids (full data below). And in this era of rising obesity rates, the goal is also to encourage more children to walk to school and to play at their local park.

Continue reading Ride into the safety zone: new traffic calming and ped safety treatments

Fatality Tracker: Cyclist avoids dooring and falls under wheels of semi truck

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 21 (9 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 5 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 7

The Chicago Tribune reports:

A bicyclist was struck and killed by a semi truck on the Near North Side this morning, apparently when he swerved to avoid an open car door, authorities said. Police at the scene said the accident happened just before 9 a.m. on Wells Street in front of Walter Payton High School, just north of Oak Street.

The bicyclist was in the southbound lane and turned suddently to avoid an open car door and fell underneath the front wheels of the truck’s flat-bed trailer, police said.

As of 10:20 a.m., rescue crews were still working to remove the body. The bicycle lay near cars parked along the curb. The victim is male, but no other information was available.

Continue reading Fatality Tracker: Cyclist avoids dooring and falls under wheels of semi truck