Category: Transportation

Take back the bike lane

[flickr]photo:5602252134[/flickr]

[flickr]photo:5938721385[/flickr]

Take it back. The bike lane that is. Take it back from those who park in it, put their valet signs in it, park valet cars in it, pickup and drop off passengers in it, or generally illegally block the bike lane, forcing cyclists to merge into faster moving traffic to avoid it.

Two weeks ago, feeling sick and tired of the disrespect people have for facilities the City of Chicago and its funding partners (mainly the federal government) have built for the exclusive use of people riding bicycles, I confronted three people about their parking in the bike lane.

Continue reading Take back the bike lane

Bike Chicago’s protest of Alta Bicycle Share winning bike sharing contract

[flickr]photo:7221636418[/flickr]

An example bicycle from Public Bike Share Co. Click on the image to read the photographer’s short review of his trip. Photo by Kevin Zolkiewicz. We’ll publish a review of bicycling in Toronto later this week. 

The Chicago Office of the Inspector General is currently investigating the procurement process for the bike sharing RFP that selected Alta Bicycle Share, Inc., and its partner, Public Bike Share Co., as the winner bidder to launch a bike sharing program in the city with 4,000 bikes and 400 kiosks.

In March, Josh Squire, the president of Bike Chicago (a sponsor of this blog through Bike and Park), called the selection process “tainted”. In April he sent Grid Chicago a summary of the allegations and a detailed timeline of evidence supporting them. We’re posting it now because we’ve received a couple inquiries about the procurement process that this could help answer.

We will contact the Inspector General’s office soon to get an update on the investigation. The Chicago Department of Transportation and its commissioner Gabe Klein have made two separate comments to Grid Chicago about the investigation: at MBAC, and at Bike to Work Day Rally.

Download the email (.pdf).

Follow the bike sharing tag to read all of our coverage.

Wells Street buffered bike lane construction began today (photos)

Several #bikeCHI tweeters noticed in the past few days that existing bike lane stripes on Wells Street had been ground out (probably last Friday). Today, new bike lane striping was installed south of Chicago Avenue, to at least Ohio Street, in the River North neighborhood.

Photos are from Adam Herstein. They start at the north end of the project and move south (in the direction of travel). Wells Street is one-way south of Erie Street (until Congress Parkway) and two-way north of Erie Street.

[flickr]photo:7401283620[/flickr]

Wells and Superior Streets. 

Continue reading Wells Street buffered bike lane construction began today (photos)

My first time driving a hybrid vehicle from I-GO Car Sharing

[flickr]photo:7397833964[/flickr]

On Saturday I needed to pick up a bunch of houseplants from a home improvement store and it seemed like it would be a hassle to carry them safely on my Fresh Air bicycle trailer. Also, after a lot of procrastinating, I recently got my Chicago Card Plus, which provides access to the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and I-GO Car Sharing, replaced after the old one cracked and stopped functioning months ago. So this seemed like a good opportunity to try out my new card by checking out a vehicle from I-GO, the nonprofit service operated by the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

When I logged onto the I-GO website, I noticed that there were a couple of locations near my home in Logan Square with standard Toyota Prius hybrid cars. I-GO also offers plug-in electric hybrid Priuses, which they say can get 100 mile-per-gallon for trips under forty miles. This results in up to two-thirds lower fuel costs and emissions than the standard Prius, I-GO says, but currently all of the plug-in hybrids are located downtown. The service also recently added several Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan LEAF electric cars to their fleet.

Continue reading My first time driving a hybrid vehicle from I-GO Car Sharing

Infrastructure updates: 18th Street bike lane and inaccessible sidewalk ramp to be modified

[flickr]photo:7010917193[/flickr]

A person drives their car in the 18th Street separated bike lane. 

Grid Chicago gathered photos, videos, and reports from neighbors in April and May about parking and driving in the 18th Street separated bike lane (from Clark Street to Canal Street) and discussed the situation with 25th Ward Alderman Solis’s office in June. Lauren Pacheco tells us that the bike lane design will be modified and that police will pay more attention to the street:

A series of CDOT and Aldermanic driven initiatives will be launched in ensuring bicycle lane safety along this route inculding bike ambassadors educational outreach at the site for drivers, moving the bollards closer to the sidewalk thereby narrowing the bike lane preventing automobile use, and increased police district enforcement requests by Alderman Solis.

How much closer to the sidewalk the bollards will be moved is not known; we are waiting for a response. The bike lane is currently 7 or 8 feet wide and there is a 2 or 3-feet-wide buffer between the bike lane and 10-feet-wide travel lane. The bollards are currently closer to the travel lane, on the left side of the buffer (in the direction of travel). Continue reading Infrastructure updates: 18th Street bike lane and inaccessible sidewalk ramp to be modified

Bicycle crashes: A presentation at the Transport Chicago conference

[flickr]photo:7391617984[/flickr]

I assisted Nabil Nazha in gathering data and developing a methodology for the geographic analysis of bicycle crashes at intersections needed to complete his master’s thesis from the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA). I graduated from CUPPA in 2010. We submitted his paper to the Transport Chicago conference and it was accepted; see Session 1 – A Safety Dance. He was out of the country at the time of the conference so I gave this presentation alone. 

[slide 1 – intro]

From 2007 to 2010 there were 6,705 bicyclists involved in 6,664 crashes involving at least one bicycle and one automobile. A majority of bicyclists received injuries and 20 bicyclists died . Bicycle crashes at intersections are the topic of the paper, Safe Cycling in Chicago. Continue reading Bicycle crashes: A presentation at the Transport Chicago conference