Category: Transportation

Fatality Tracker: Man electrocutes himself crossing Blue Line tracks

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California Blue Line station photo by Clint. 

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 7 (6 have been from hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 3
Transit: 6

A man was killed by electrocution after apparently attempting to cross the CTA Blue Line tracks at the California Blue Line station early morning on Wednesday, August 1. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

“It looked like he wanted to get to the other side (of the platform),” and tried to do so by crossing the tracks, a Shakespeare District police sergeant said. As he did so, “he grabbed on to the third rail and that was it.”

A CTA spokeswoman said the man touched the third rail on the southbound tracks.

Electrocution was the preliminary cause of death for the victim, who remained unidentified but was believed to be in his 30s, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said Wednesday morning. An autopsy is scheduled for later performed Wednesday, but the sergeant said it did not appear to be a suicide or criminal incident.

* 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.

Message of cameraderie: the courier championships come to Chicago

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Nico Deportago-Cabrera and Christina Peck.

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

Mayor Daley’s campaign to host the 2016 Olympics in Chicago failed, but local bike messengers are realizing their dream to bring the Olympics of two-wheeled delivery to town. As the athletic action heats up in London, this weekend hundreds of couriers from around the globe will converge in our city for the 20th Annual Cycle Messenger World Championships, with a packed schedule of races, arts events and parties celebrating their unique lifestyle.

Championships-related events have been taking place all week, with the main competitions happening all day Saturday and Sunday, starting at 10 am, in the south parking lot of Soldier Field, 18th Street and the Lakefront Trail, next to the sled hill. Other highlights include track racing at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome in Northbrook, a nighttime “alleycat” (messenger-style race in live traffic), a movie night with courier-themed films, an opening party featuring punk-rock legends Agent Orange and the infamous Messenger Prom. Check out the full schedule of events here.

Continue reading Message of cameraderie: the courier championships come to Chicago

Navy Pier Flyover alternative design followup: New renderings and ideas

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The above rendering shows how the Grid Chicago alternative proposal would utilize the right-most northbound lane as a two-way bicycle path. I still recommend a Jersey-style concrete barrier but bollards are used for display purposes so you can better see how the road is used by the path. Rendering by Erich Stenzel. 

I’ve biked through the Navy Pier Flyover project area a few more times since proposing an alternative in late June. I’ve crafted a few more ideas, based on discussions here and on The Chainlink. Additionally, Erich Stenzel has created two renderings of the proposal’s match to “Phase 1” (the section of the Lakefront Trail south of the Chicago River north to Illinois Street; there are two other construction phases). Lastly, in reading some of the public meeting and other documents, I’ve learned a few interesting things about the project.

Modified ideas

1. The proposal doesn’t necessarily have to compete with all three segments of the Navy Pier Flyover. The proposal is an immediate solution to the issues. This is apparent because there was an immediate and effective solution in 2009 when the Lake Shore Drive Bridge sidewalk that *all* Lakefront Trail users pass over was inaccessible. The converted travel lane over Lake Shore Drive Bridge, through Illinois Street and up to Grand Avenue, could be built in 48 hours with a little asphalt (south of the bridge) metal plates, guardrails, and Jersey barriers.

The segment over the Lake Shore Drive bridge will be bid out in fall 2013 and constructed in 2014, according to one of the documents I received in response to my information request. This leaves enough time for the design to be amended to incorporate this part of the Grid Chicago alternative proposal. Continue reading Navy Pier Flyover alternative design followup: New renderings and ideas

Grid Bits: CTA bus job fair, pay with smartphone on Metra, new federal transit safety regulations

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A Metra train crosses Canal Street in downtown Chicago. Photo by David Wilson. 

There are 6 articles in this transit-focused edition of Grid Bits, a sporadically occurring category of posts that summarize and link to recent articles in other news media. At the end you’ll find two Grid Chicago-authored commentaries. The first attempting to explain the logistical reasons why CTA’s Blue and Red Lines, the busiest, don’t have 5000-series cars; the second recommending a possible weekend-only pilot project to allow bicycles on South Shore trains.

In the federal transportation bill that was signed into law in early July, a provision was included that requires the Federal Transit Administration to work with state departments of transportation to develop safety regulations for transit providers across the country (including the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and Pace). No such regulation currently exists, as it does for intercity bus travel, air travel, and highways, among other modes. Transit agencies, understanding consequences of poor emergency responses, have been self-regulating. It remains to be seen if such regulation will be an improvement over past self-regulation. The Chicago Tribune reports: Continue reading Grid Bits: CTA bus job fair, pay with smartphone on Metra, new federal transit safety regulations

How does wayfinding on the CTA compare to BART?

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Plentiful signage at this CTA station makes it easy to figure out which station you’re at and where you need to catch your train. Photo by Mickey B. All other images courtesy of the author.

This guest post was contributed by Rachel Hyman, a senior at the University of Chicago who studies geography. A resident of Hyde Park, she’s made it her mission to see every corner of Chicago, by bike if possible. In her free time, she edits the literary blog Banango Lit.

Almost all of my experience with urban public transit has been in Chicago, so I was excited to come out to San Francisco for a summer internship and scope out their system. to get to work I take BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), essentially a subway that runs within San Francisco and in the East Bay. In Chicago, I live in Hyde Park, which doesn’t have great access to the ‘L’, so it’s nice to live closer to a train station here. Just last week, though, I had an experience which soured me a bit on BART.

Continue reading How does wayfinding on the CTA compare to BART?

Not every bike lane is cause for a celebration

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The Grand Avenue bike lane is less than 2 years old and came with destroyed pavement. This photo was taken between Clark and LaSalle Streets. 

The addition of a bike lane on any given street is not necessarily a victory for citizen cyclists. In order to to be a worthy expansion of the cycling network, bike lanes should be installed (with appropriate contextual modifications) on streets where such an addition makes the roadway more conducive to comfortable cycling. Grand Avenue isn’t one of these streets. The addition of a bike lane between Orleans Street and Navy Pier in 2010, when no other changes were made to the street environment and design, did not make the street better to cycle on. There were preexisting issues that have remained long after the lane was striped.

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A right-turn lane would likely have fit at LaSalle Street, but instead drivers use the bike lane to prepare for their turn.  Continue reading Not every bike lane is cause for a celebration