Category: People

Reactions to CDOT’s Chicago Forward Action Agenda vary

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Transit, safety, and congestion make up parts of the Action Agenda. 

Below are excerpts from others’ reactions to the Chicago Department of Transportation’s two-year plan, the Chicago Forward Action Agenda.

Ryan Richter, writing for Transport Nexus:

I think the very first performance measure, to increase activity, sales revenue, and occupancy rates in neighborhood commercial districts, is a fantastic example of breaking out of the silo. This is a problem that will have to be addressed city-wide through multiple agencies. Recognizing that streets can “add value”  to the neighborhoods means that you begin looking at streets in “complete” terms, as in how can a street serve multiple modes simultaneously?

Continue reading Reactions to CDOT’s Chicago Forward Action Agenda vary

Streetcar desire: John Krause wants trams on Clark Street

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Krause is tired of going Nuts on Clark waiting for for the slow-moving #22 bus.

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

Acid jazz pulsed on the sound system as a group of stylishly dressed transit fans clinked wine glasses last week at Vapiano, a sleek Italian restaurant at 2577 North Clark Street in Lincoln Park. They were there to launch the Chicago Streetcar Renaissance, a campaign to create a world-class streetcar line on Clark from the Loop to Wrigley Field, and eventually add lines in other parts of the city.

“Our mission is to grow the economy and the population of Chicago every year while reducing traffic congestion and making the city easier to get around,” says John Krause, 45, the architect who founded the movement, nattily attired in jeans and a dove-gray sports jacket. “That means every year there will be more people and fewer cars, more commerce and less congestion.”

He has a vision of the clogged traffic and the notoriously sluggish buses on Clark replaced by efficient, comfortable streetcars, more pedestrian traffic, on-street cafés and broad bike lanes. “The only way you can get rid of cars is to replace them with something better,” he explains. “In a car paradigm everybody assumes the city is going to grow more and more congested. But a public transit system is the opposite. The more people who use public transit, the better it gets.”

Continue reading Streetcar desire: John Krause wants trams on Clark Street

More on the Chicago Forward Action Agenda: Congestion mitigation, truck deliveries, bike messengers

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People riding a bicycle and driving a truck, respectively, share the road on Monroe Street in downtown Chicago. Trucks occupy a section of CDOT’s two-year plan. Photo by Joseph Dennis. 

The Chicago Department of Transportation on May 11 released its 100-page, two-year plan to “ensure that Chicago continues to be a vibrant international city, successfully competing in the global economy with a transportation system that provides high- quality service to residents, businesses, and visitors”. That’s the Chicago Forward Action Agenda’s vision statement. Grid Chicago talked to CDOT commissioner Gabe Klein that day about the plan’s development, role in shaping the transportation systems in the city, and select performance measures and action items. In the first part, we discussed the deep partnership with CTA and CDOT, public outreach for the plan (via the Pedestrian and Streets for Cycling planning processes), and eliminating all traffic fatalities. In this part, we talk about congestion, enfacing and consolidating loading zones, and bicycle and truck deliveries.

Download Chicago Forward (13 MB .pdf) to follow along.

There are many performance measures that don’t seem to be performances measures at all. For example, “improve CTA’s on-time performance” on page 41. So if you improve it 1% over 10 years, has the plan achieved the right level of performance?

That’s a very fair criticism. What you have to understand, we don’t run CTA. What we’re trying to do there is let people know that that’s a goal we’re working on. I can very much see your point. In some cases, we just can’t give measurable goals because it wouldn’t be fair to that agency.

It’s not going to be perfect, but I’d rather put something out and actually have goals for the agency, even if we don’t hit 100% of the goals, but 90% of the goals, than have a perfect plan. Continue reading More on the Chicago Forward Action Agenda: Congestion mitigation, truck deliveries, bike messengers

Design and features of six Bloomingdale Trail access parks are formulated in a single night

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Participants at Tuesday evening’s access parks charrette. Most photos by John. 

In 2015, when the Bloomingdale Trail and parks are complete, no one should be able to say that a feature or two isn’t supposed to be there. In a public planning process that continues to impress, with unprecedented, widespread community involvement, a new step was completed on Monday and Tuesday with the release of the framework plan and a trail access and park charrette, respectively. The residents of Chicago have designed this trail and its accompanying access parks by providing feedback probably totaling several million words. This is a process where votes are cast by showing up and participating; homeowners concerned about privacy met directly with members of the design team, and meeting participants stressing their concerns over people bicycling too fast were among the voters.

The design team, which consists of the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), Trust for Public Land (TPL), the Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail, and TPL and the Park District’s many contractors, held an access park charrette on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, at the Humboldt Park Fieldhouse. Continue reading Design and features of six Bloomingdale Trail access parks are formulated in a single night

Can bike shop deserts be eradicated on Chicago’s South Side?

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Johnny and John Stallworth at John’s Hardware & Bicycle Shop.

[This piece also runs in Urban Velo magazine.]

Pedaling down Halsted Street into Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, I smell the unmistakable aroma of Harold’s Chicken as I pass an outpost of the South Side chain whose logo features a chef chasing a rooster with a hatchet. After an SUV speeds by me booming hip-hop, I pull up to John’s Hardware & Bicycle Shop, 7350 S. Halsted, and admire the old-fashioned, hand-painted sign, featuring John Stallworth’s smiling, bearded face and his no-nonsense slogan, “If we don’t have it you don’t need it.”

Continue reading Can bike shop deserts be eradicated on Chicago’s South Side?

Comment of the day: Even though city may be divided, it’s time to embrace good changes

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Photo of a man riding a bike by Drew Baker, found in the Grid Chicago Flickr group. 

I prefer to see comments like this in my inbox. This comment was posted by “flashabc” on John’s article, Bike facilities don’t have to be the white lanes of gentrification, regarding new bike lanes on Division Street in Humboldt Park:

I ride my bike everywhere in the city from Logan thru Wicker and Into Pilsen. I document the murals and have painted a few myself. I am Puerto Rican that was born in Humboldt and raised in Logan. It is time for the “My Community” to embrace the changes and the good that comes with generation that is growing in and around Humboldt. This city was very divided as i grew up in these neighborhoods. Its just the way it is. But know for the first time in my 45 years i can ride a bike in the middle of the night on Milwaukee Ave. This is only because of the bike movement of the past few years. People working together is the only way this city will ever go foward. It is time for the Humboldt Park community to grow with the rest of the communities around it and not fall into the old fashion hate that has encircled it.

Thank you for your comment.