Category: Transportation

West Loop gains new transit option with today’s opening of CTA Morgan station

First day of CTA Morgan Station serving the Green and Pink Lines

The fully enclosed glass and metal stairways and transfer bridge make an architectural and industrial statement in the growing West Loop neighborhood. 

The CTA has opened two new stations within three weeks of each other. The first was Oakton-Skokie on the Yellow Line in Skokie, Illinois, on April 30, and today the Morgan Green/Pink Line station opened (without fanfare). A grand opening will likely happen June 1.

Continue reading West Loop gains new transit option with today’s opening of CTA Morgan station

A post about posts: why CDOT took out bollards along the Kinzie lanes

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Messenger John “Blunt” Robbins rides in a section of Kinzie without parking, where every-other post has been removed.

It was a little mysterious when the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) recently removed more than half of the flexible posts (AKA bollards) that separate the Kinzie protected bike lanes from parked cars and moving traffic. So I called CDOT bikeways planner Mike Amsden, to get the skinny. He explained the motivations for taking out the posts, and also pointed out a few recent upgrades to the street I hadn’t noticed before.

Continue reading A post about posts: why CDOT took out bollards along the Kinzie lanes

Bike lanes update: Franklin Boulevard under construction, Wells Street soon

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Bikeway construction in 2012 continues at a breakneck pace. Crews were installing a buffered bike lane on Franklin Boulevard on Wednesday, between Central Park Avenue/Conservatory Drive and Sacramento Boulevard (0.75 miles) in East Garfield Park. The safety project eliminates a travel lane in each direction, creates a center left turn lane, and refreshes crosswalk markings. Adding a concrete barrier or parked cars could make it a protected bike lane. Read John’s earlier article about bikeways in this neighborhood, Are the upcoming Streets for Cycling projects in good locations?.

The abysmal pavement condition in the bike lane should have been repaired before bike lane markings were striped. The Franklin Boulevard buffered bike lane connects to a conventional bike lane on Central Park Avenue/Conservatory Drive (which connects to a bikeway on Lake Street coming soon). Sacramento Boulevard doesn’t have a bikeway.

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CDOT should address this unsettling missing sewer cover and other deep potholes and pavement cracks in the bike lane. See all 18 photos. Continue reading Bike lanes update: Franklin Boulevard under construction, Wells Street soon

Design and features of six Bloomingdale Trail access parks are formulated in a single night

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Participants at Tuesday evening’s access parks charrette. Most photos by John. 

In 2015, when the Bloomingdale Trail and parks are complete, no one should be able to say that a feature or two isn’t supposed to be there. In a public planning process that continues to impress, with unprecedented, widespread community involvement, a new step was completed on Monday and Tuesday with the release of the framework plan and a trail access and park charrette, respectively. The residents of Chicago have designed this trail and its accompanying access parks by providing feedback probably totaling several million words. This is a process where votes are cast by showing up and participating; homeowners concerned about privacy met directly with members of the design team, and meeting participants stressing their concerns over people bicycling too fast were among the voters.

The design team, which consists of the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), Trust for Public Land (TPL), the Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail, and TPL and the Park District’s many contractors, held an access park charrette on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, at the Humboldt Park Fieldhouse. Continue reading Design and features of six Bloomingdale Trail access parks are formulated in a single night

Can bike shop deserts be eradicated on Chicago’s South Side?

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Johnny and John Stallworth at John’s Hardware & Bicycle Shop.

[This piece also runs in Urban Velo magazine.]

Pedaling down Halsted Street into Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, I smell the unmistakable aroma of Harold’s Chicken as I pass an outpost of the South Side chain whose logo features a chef chasing a rooster with a hatchet. After an SUV speeds by me booming hip-hop, I pull up to John’s Hardware & Bicycle Shop, 7350 S. Halsted, and admire the old-fashioned, hand-painted sign, featuring John Stallworth’s smiling, bearded face and his no-nonsense slogan, “If we don’t have it you don’t need it.”

Continue reading Can bike shop deserts be eradicated on Chicago’s South Side?

Photos from day 2 of Elston Avenue cycle track construction

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The northbound section reached Division Street. 

The design reveals itself hour by hour (see day one). Today I visited at 10 AM. One Twitterer had this reaction to the project: “@gabe_klein As a daily Elston bike commuter I thank you and all of @ChicagoDOT for expanding these facilities. cc @gridchicago @thetrolusk”.  Continue reading Photos from day 2 of Elston Avenue cycle track construction