Category: People

An interview with Mike Morell, Chicago’s fastest bike messenger

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Mike Morell with his dog Walter at the Cycle Messenger World Championships.

[This article also appears in Time Out Chicago magazine.]

Earlier this month hundreds of bike couriers from four continents converged on Chicago for the 20th annual Cycle Messenger World Championships, a PBR-fueled gathering of the tribes with competitions, arts events and parties celebrating the delivery lifestyle. The centerpiece of the weekend was a checkpoint race held in the vast parking lot south of Soldier Field, simulating a day of Loop courier work. Seattle’s Craig Etheridge and Josephine Reitzel from Lausanne, Switzerland were crowned the world’s fastest messengers. We caught up with Mike Morell, 35, co-founder of Four Star Courier Collective, who was the top-ranking local at 17th place out of a field of 258.

Continue reading An interview with Mike Morell, Chicago’s fastest bike messenger

Open 311 public tools and developer access for Chicago “weeks” away

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Jesse Bounds talks about the “311 volley” at the last OpenGov Meetup. 

Update September 14: One month later and the Service Tracker is now live. Input your SR number and watch its status (hopefully) change. 

At the August OpenGov Meetup, Jesse Bounds, developer with Code for America, demonstrated some of the tools to interface with “Open 311” that are available now for many cities around the country to improve city services data collection and presentation. John Tolva, Chicago’s Chief Technology Officer working with Bounds and other Code for America fellows, said that a read and write programming interface for developers will be available “in weeks, not months”.

You can view two of the tools now, but neither show information from Chicago until the launch. They’re part of “311 Labs”: The Daily Brief, and Open 311 Status – both of these are designed for non-developers. Bounds also showed off the “311 Service Request Tracker”, which was designed after shipping company package tracking websites. It shows step-by-step the process for a citizen’s request for service.

Continue reading Open 311 public tools and developer access for Chicago “weeks” away

Berlin bicycling: an interview with bike blogger Wolfgang Scherreiks

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Wolfgang Scherreiks with his English-made Pashley Guv’nor.

It’s ironic that I’ve written dozens of articles about efforts to make Chicago more like the bike-friendly cities of northern Europe, but until recently I’d never actually been to any of these places. Last month I finally made the trip across the pond to check out bike facilities in Berlin, Copenhagen and several towns in the Netherlands.

It was inspiring to experience places where cycling, walking and transit are given at least as much respect as driving, with the result being livable, vibrant cities. During the trip I met up with various transportation advocates and bloggers to pick their brains about the local cycling scene, in hopes of gleaning ideas for Chicago.

Continue reading Berlin bicycling: an interview with bike blogger Wolfgang Scherreiks

Fatality Tracker: Woman killed after Megabus hits her crossing downtown street

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A Megabus is seen turning in 2007 at the intersection (Adams and Canal Streets, next to Union Station) of a deadly pedestrian crash last week. Photo by Thunderchild7.

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 10 (6 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 4 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 6

Donna Halstead was crossing Adams Street along Canal Street on last Tuesday, August 7, when she was struck by the passenger side mirror of a double-decker Megabus driven by Shemeka Hudson, fell to the ground, and later died. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the driver “was cited for failing to yield to a pedestrian” while state and city law require drivers to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks (where Halstead was crossing). Continue reading Fatality Tracker: Woman killed after Megabus hits her crossing downtown street

Fatality Tracker: Woman killed while crossing street in Jefferson Park

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Looking northwest along Milwaukee Avenue with Higgins Avenue on the left. Photo by David Wilson. 

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 8 (6 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 4 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 6

A woman crossing the street last Sunday, August 5, was killed in an automobile collision a few hundred feet from the Jefferson Park CTA and Metra stations, on her birthday. The Chicago Tribune writes, in a decidedly non–robot car fashion:

A 54-year-old man [Jeffery Dalak] was behind the wheel of a Ford Expedition and traveling west on Higgins Avenue when he struck Lovett, who was walking in a crosswalk in the 5400 block of West Higgins Avenue, Jefferson Park District Police Sgt. Wilfredo Torres said.

According to Fox Chicago News, which is misreporting the crash address, the driver “was cited for striking a pedestrian in the roadway”.

* 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.

An ‘L’ of a portrayal: Waltzing Mechanics takes on Adham Fisher

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Kelsey Peterson, left, as Adham Fisher. Photo courtesy of Waltzing Mechanics.

Last Saturday my ‘L’ racing partner Danny Resner and I caught a performance of the current incarnation of the show “EL Stories,” which uses the CTA race we lost against Leicester, England, native Adham Fisher as a framing device. Created by the Waltzing Mechanics theater troupe, the performance piece features a series of vignettes based on stories recorded from actual transit riders. Here’s a write-up I did of a previous version of the show.

Grid Chicago readers will recall that Adham returned to Chicago in April to reclaim his record for visiting all 143 stations (at the time; two new ones have opened since then) in the shortest possible time, which Danny I beat last winter. Scott Presslak and Kevin Olsta beat our time in early April, and were in turn bested by Rob Bielaski and Ben Downey later that month.

Continue reading An ‘L’ of a portrayal: Waltzing Mechanics takes on Adham Fisher