Category: Bicycling

Keeping up with parking tickets: open discussion

[flickr]photo:7408043120[/flickr]

The Department of Finance continues to issue citations to people who park their cars in the bike lane, violating Municipal Code of Chicago 9-40-060. The rates have been as follows:

  • January to April, 5.07 citations per day
  • May, 6.65 citations per day
  • June, 5.87 citations per day
  • July, 6.58 citations per day
  • August, 4.55 citations per day

A few questions for readers:

Has this near-steady rate made a difference in your experience bicycling in Chicago, or should the City increase the ticketing rate?

Continue reading Keeping up with parking tickets: open discussion

“A Visitor from Chicago” by Wolfgang Scherreiks

[flickr]photo:7885636878[/flickr]

John near Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. Photo by Wolfgang Scherreiks.

Last month while visiting Berlin I met up with local journalist and bike blogger Wolgang Sherreiks near Checkpoint Charlie, the famous crossing between West Berlin and East Berlin during the Cold War. I interviewed him about the local bike scene, and then he asked me about Chicago. The following article originally ran on Wolfgang’s bike culture website, fahrradjournal (“Bikejournal”). Grid Chicago reader Greg Dreyer kindly translated it from the original German.

Earlier this week John Greenfield from the sustainable transportation blog Grid Chicago came to Berlin for a short visit as part of a two-week trip that also includes stops in Copenhagen, Amsterdam and a few other Dutch cities. Fahrradjournal talked to him about biking conditions in Chicago, the so-called “Mary Poppins Effect” and his first impressions of Berlin.

Continue reading “A Visitor from Chicago” by Wolfgang Scherreiks

The Berteau Greenway moves forward without traffic diverters

[flickr]photo:7866325312[/flickr]

47th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar discusses the greenway. Photo by Steven E. Gross.

When I attended a community meeting about the proposed Berteau Street “neighborhood greenway” last March, the following comment was representative of some 47th Ward residents’ panicked reaction to the idea of their street being reconfigured. “It’s going to create havoc and unnecessary confusion and problems and an inability to get in and out of our neighborhoods,” one local woman said to Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) and 47th Ward staffers at the assembly. “So I’m asking you to rethink what you’re doing.”

Neighborhood greenways, known as “bike boulevards” in other cities, are residential streets where speeding and cut-through traffic are discouraged through the use of traffic calming devices and/or traffic diverters – bump-outs, cul-de-sacs and other structures which prevent cars from driving down the entire length of the street or making certain turns. Meanwhile, contraflow bicycle lanes allow bikes to travel in both directions on one-way sections, and the traffic diverters have cutouts that permit cyclists to continue unimpeded.

Continue reading The Berteau Greenway moves forward without traffic diverters

Grid Shots: Copenhagen cargo bikes

[flickr]photo:7818341226[/flickr]

A woman pedals her “short john” cargo bike across the world’s busiest bike intersection. 

According to Mikael Colville-Anderson, there are about 40,000 cargo bikes in the municipalities of Frederiksburg, where he and his company, Copenhagenize Consulting, live, and Copenhagen, the city where I’ve been for 5 days now.

And Saturday we held the 4th annual Danish cargo bike championships, or “Svajerløb” (pronounced zvy-uhh-loob). I participated in the Team Relay race with my friend Brandon Gobel and two Danish locals, Micha and Lasse (he cofounded the Bicycle Innovation Lab here).

[flickr]photo:7818342642[/flickr]

A woman pushes her trike across the sidewalk in a shopping neighborhood. 

[flickr]photo:7818344668[/flickr]

One trike among many bikes parked near a Metro station and indoor public market. 

[flickr]photo:7818346858[/flickr]

Two Bullitt bikes outside the Larry vs. Harry workshop. 

[flickr]photo:7818348634[/flickr]

The City of Copenhagen found four families in the Vesterbro neighborhood who wanted to securely store their cargo bikes on the street in this pink container shaped like a car. Each family has a key to their separated compartments, and the door lifts up. The City plans to build more. Each takes up 1 American car parking space, or 1.5 European car parking spaces. Gobel and Colville-Anderson are on the left side of the photo. 

See more photos from my Cargo bikes in Copenhagen set. This was an unplanned edition of Grid Shots.

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

[flickr]photo:7797715706[/flickr]

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

Berlin bicycling: an interview with bike blogger Wolfgang Scherreiks

[flickr]photo:7678268964[/flickr]

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