Category: People

Out spokin’: The Windy City Cycling Club rides with pride

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[This piece also runs on the environmental news website Grist.org.]

“It’s not that we don’t like straight people,” explains Jeff Rogers, president of the Windy City Cycling Club (WCCC), Chicago’s oldest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender bicycle group. “On the contrary: The biking community at large tends to be made up of very nice people who are very accepting of diversity in general. But gay and lesbian people have a comfort level with each other that’s different than with straight people.”

That sense of belonging is easy to see as we hang out at T’s bar, a buzzing lesbian, gay, and straight pub in Chicago’s LGBT-friendly Andersonville neighborhood, on a sunny February afternoon. A dozen or so club members, mostly women plus a handful of men, are gathered at an off-season social for Dykes Pedaling Bikes, the club’s monthly women’s ride. Ranging in age from late 20s to late 50s, they kibbitz over $5 hamburgers and tall glasses of hefeweizen with lemon slices as Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” blasts on the sound system. A couple of them wear the club’s jersey, featuring a bicycle wheel, the Sears Tower, the Chicago flag, and a rainbow banner.

Continue reading Out spokin’: The Windy City Cycling Club rides with pride

What is an unmarked crosswalk?

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At the corner of Schaumburg and Barrington Roads in Schaumburg, Illinois, sits an unmarked crosswalk. Can you see it? There are no pedestrian signals here, so follow the signals for cars. Good luck. 

I posted my “Can we cross Belmont Avenue?” story in full to EveryBlock to get some reactions from neighbors who would be familiar with that specific crossing. As I suspected, there would be confusion about what the laws in Illinois say about the required behaviors of drivers when they encounter people trying to cross the street.

From Active Transportation Alliance promotional materials (pdf), it says,

As of 2010, Illinois drivers must come to a complete stop for pedestrians in all crosswalks. Previous law required them to yield and stop when necessary.

Continue reading What is an unmarked crosswalk?

Fatality Tracker: Woman dies after being hit by Rock Island Metra train

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2012 fatality stats*:
Pedestrian: 3
Pedalcyclist: 0
Transit: 0

Updated March 16, 2012: I’ve recategorized this as a pedestrian death, and not a transit death. Also changed the deceased’s home location and corrected the Street View.

Gardenia Boyer, 23, from the Brainerd neighborhood, was struck and killed by an empty Metra train at 95th Street and Vincennes Avenue on the Rock Island branch going south towards Blue Island, Illinois. It happened on Wednesday morning, around 7 AM. She was walking east on 95th Street. There are two tracks here. Walking on 95th Street never seems like a good idea: the first fatality tracker post was about two people killed while crossing 95th Street. She had two daughters.  Continue reading Fatality Tracker: Woman dies after being hit by Rock Island Metra train

Rallying the community around the Bloomingdale Trail, a project for open space, art, and active transportation

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Meet Maggie Martinez. She was the final commenter at last night’s final public meeting for the development of the Bloomingdale Trail framework plan*. And what a final comment she made. If I had known it was going to be a rousing call to action for supporting youth in arts and cycling, and the benefits of the project for the Humboldt Park and nearby communities, I would have filmed it. Instead you get this (pretty good) photo, the audio of her speech, and a transcript.

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I put the audio of Maggie speaking to a basic slideshow of photos from the meeting. Watch it on Vimeo. Continue reading Rallying the community around the Bloomingdale Trail, a project for open space, art, and active transportation

Pedaling revolution: Comrade Cycles seizes the means of production

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This is the first article published in “Checkerboard City,” John’s new column about sustainable transportation that will run in print in every issue of Newcity magazine, which hits the streets on Wednesday evenings.

“Bikers of Chicago unite! You have nothing to lube but your chains.”
—Suggested manifesto for Comrade Cycles

First there was Atomix Café, with its giant mural of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, then Revolution Brewing, with a red star logo and tap handles shaped like upraised fists. By opening Chicago’s newest communist-themed enterprise, the three worker-owners behind Comrade Cycles hope to make their Marx on the local bike scene.

Continue reading Pedaling revolution: Comrade Cycles seizes the means of production

Can I just cross the street safely for a burger?

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Two guys trying to cross Belmont Avenue towards Kuma’s Corner in 2008. 

My mom, sister, and I were walking to Kuma’s Corner in Avondale tonight (2900 W Belmont Ave). We were starting to cross Belmont Avenue along Francisco Avenue. Eastbound traffic was backed up at the Elston Avenue/California Avenue light so we easily slipped through stopped traffic. Then we looked to the east at fast moving westbound traffic.

Westbound Belmont Avenue has two lanes at this time of day because of rush hour parking controls (RHPC). You probably know what this is but never knew what it’s called. It’s when you can’t park a car on one side of the street during a morning or afternoon two-hour stretch, and you can’t park on the opposite side of the street during the opposite period. It’s to facilitate faster moving traffic and I believe to relieve congestion. Whether it does that is a good question.

Anyway, there were two lanes of fast moving traffic and there were no gaps so we couldn’t cross. Don’t pedestrians have the right of way when crossing streets? Or do they need permission? I understatedly mentioned something about this to my mother, saying “The law requires that drivers stop for people in crosswalks”.

My mother took this as a cue to throw up her hands in disgust and shout, “Can we cross? Let’s go!”

I don’t know if the two drivers in the two lanes heard her, but they obviously saw her gesture and stopped their vehicles. I told her, “No one does that”, referring to the gesture and shout.

Maybe that’s the key to demanding our right to safely cross.

Right after this happened, I tweeted, “@ChicagoDOT what are you doing to increase compliance w/ ‘stop for peds in crosswalk’ law? Does the CPD pull over drivers anymore? #walkCHI”