Bicycling – Page 47 – Grid Chicago

Chicago’s first Cargo Bike Roll Call

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Monday’s Cargo Bike Roll Call at West Town Bikes, organized by my Grid Chicago co-blogger Steven Vance, went as well as could possibly been have hoped for. The event was a chance for proud cargo bike owners to show off their vehicles, for newbies to learn what cargo biking is all about and for everyone to get a chance to take these unique rides for a spin.

With a long line of parked cargo cycles occupying almost half the width of Campbell Street next to West Town, the roll call was a de facto block party (at least until a police officer asked us to move the bikes to the parkway halfway through the evening). And it was a terrific party, with booming dance music playing from West Town Bikes director Alex Wilson’s sound bike as folks hung out swapping advice on transporting children and other ungainly objects by bicycle. It’s been a while since I’ve hung out at this nonprofit bike shop and education center, and I was reminded what a great vibe this place has.

Speaking of kids, there was a great turnout of youngsters, totally appropriate at an event that was largely about how to use a bike in place of a car for household errands. The children loved riding on the vehicles, or even piloting them, and the party was much enlivened by the little ones running around and shrieking, hopped up on multiple slices of watermelon.

Continue reading Chicago’s first Cargo Bike Roll Call

Residents choose what they like for a 35th Ward student active transportation plan

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On September 1st, 2011, at the St. Sylvester fieldhouse across from Palmer Square Park, residents of the 35th Ward, encompassing Logan Square, gathered to hear an introduction to the 35th Ward Student Active Transportation Plan. The 35th Ward office has hired Sam Schwartz Engineering (SSE) to conduct public meetings, gather residents’ input, and craft a plan to make biking and walking easier and safer around schools and parks in the ward. Continue reading Residents choose what they like for a 35th Ward student active transportation plan

Where’s the next Bloomingdale Trail?

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Looking west on the Bloomingdale Trail from approximately Leavitt and Milwaukee. The Blue Line towards O’Hare crosses here. Photo by John Tolva.

The first public meeting for the Bloomingdale Trail, an elevated abandoned railroad line, soon to be an elevated linear park, happened last Thursday at the Congress Theater in Logan Square. This was the first meeting where members of the public got to hear from and meet the consultants the City of Chicago hired through a competitive bidding process.

The City awarded ARUP North America the contract to do Phase I engineering and Phase II design over a year after the company was selected. ARUP has nine subcontractors, several of which are based in Chicago (see page two of the FAQ). They are collectively called the “design team.”

Continue reading Where’s the next Bloomingdale Trail?

A visitor’s guide to biking in Chicago

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A view of downtown from Promontory Point, about 55th Street and the Lakefront Trail.

Back in 2008, Momentum magazine invited me to write a roundup of the Chicago bicycle scene. The current issue of Momentum features this new guide to biking in Chicago, especially geared for visitors to the city but hopefully of interest to locals as well. Comparing the two pieces shows there have been a lot of exciting developments here in the last three years! Print space was limited so I couldn’t include every great cycling event, not-for-profit, bike shop, etc., that I would have liked to, but feel free to to comment if you think I left out anything crucial.

The city of Chicago by the numbers, courtesy of the Chicago Department of Transportation Bicycle Program:
2.7 million people
227 square miles
.5 miles of car-separated cycle tracks
123 miles of on-street bike lanes
33 miles of marked shared lanes AKA “sharrows”
50 miles of paved, off-street bike paths
12,265 on-street bike parking racks, more than any other U.S. city
60,000 people educated about safety by the city’s Bicycling Ambassadors in 2010
100 B-cycle bike share vehicles at six kiosks
300 parking spaces, showers and lockers at the Millennium Park bicycle station Continue reading A visitor’s guide to biking in Chicago

How Thought You Knew and Grid Chicago match up

This is a continuation of Grid Bits from Thursday, September 2, 2011.

I talked with founder Alexis Finch about how Grid Chicago and TyK might have similar aims. We compared the Grid Chicago mission statement to that of TyK and the results surprised me.

Our mission statement starts out with, “Grid Chicago is an outlet for news, commentary, and photography about sustainable transportation-related events, projects, and ideas.” How does Thought You Knew relate to that definition?

TyK is a photography project depicting local Chicago women. TyK will be hosting monthly events to bring more women into cycling with our Monthly Cycles hosting ladies at bike shops to teach them flat fixes and meet their local mechanics.

The next line talks about Grid Chicago being a platform for sustainable transportation.

Since women have been found to be the primary agents of change in communities, the main source of “word of mouth” communication and the dominant users/writers on the internet, TyK’s target of bringing more women to the cycling conversation, who have otherwise felt disincluded, uninvited or intimidated fits well with your goal of being a platform.

Then our mission statement talks about the culture around sustainable transportation.

I’d say that TyK has become a part of Chicago’s culture already, and stands to be more so soon.

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Miss September 2012. Photo by Kimberley Capriotti.

Okay, enough about us, tell me more about TyK. How will TyK expand its own mission?

TyK has shifted over to being offered to shops on wholesale. This turns us into an incredibly appealing Christmas item, particularly for bike shops trying to get folks in during the slow season. More sales means more pinups on more walls, spreading the good word. We’re also selling internationally now, which means the “powerful pinup” will be able to become a part of the global vernacular. Tokyo and Shanghai already love us and are really excited at the strong and sassy example we’re providing for the ladies out there. We’ll just hint vaguely at what that means in the next few years.

Will TyK launch in other cities?

There aren’t any plans for the calendar to be a “city by city” calendar. However, there are some plots afoot for next year giving some ladies in the rest of the United States the chance to be nominated to strut their stuff.

In the meantime, we’ll be working to expand The Monthly Cycle [a women-only bike repair class] to cities across the USA. It’s not just shops in Chicago who need more female customers, and who need their customers to feel comfortable. This is an issue everywhere. So, we’ll be working to make sure women everywhere get the chance to learn a bit about their bikes and get welcomed into the cycling world one local shop at a time.

Aside from the calendar and The Monthly Cycle, what else is happening this year?

TyK will be rolling through Interbike (September 14-16 in Las Vegas) filming another section of our documentary. Depicting how women are represented in the industry is an important facet of our mission. We’ll also be participating in the Chrome/Momentum Fashion Show!

This will also be one of our main times to do our wholesaling to shops outside Chicago. Since everyone is already in Vegas, it’s a great time to get the word out and get some orders in. Oh, and we’ll have stickers. Possibly spoke cards too…