Category: Transportation

A secular Chicago cycling Christmas

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The Chicago Cycling Club’s Bagel Ride – photo courtesy of Kathy Schubert

[This piece also runs in Newcity magazine.]

Christmas is a great time to be in Chicago, even if you’re not a Christian. As a mostly nonobservant Jewish person, I usually make a point of staying in town during the holiday because I always have a blast. It’s the best of both worlds. I get to enjoy the spirit of brotherhood and good cheer that prevails, and pedal the nearly traffic-free streets, but there’s no pressure to gather with relatives (Thanksgiving is when we do that) or exchange gifts. For me Christmas is a chance to spend quality time with members of my family of choice, my longtime friends from the local bicycling community.

Continue reading A secular Chicago cycling Christmas

Streetfilms publishes their Kinzie cycle track video, and bike lane updates

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In this video published by New York City-based Streetfilms and producer Elizabeth Press, you’ll hear from me, Gabe Klein, David Gleason, Bradley Topol, Brandon Gobel, Alderman Solis, and Lorena Cupcake. We’re all talking about the coolness of Chicago’s first protected bike lane. Continue reading Streetfilms publishes their Kinzie cycle track video, and bike lane updates

Gettin’ down at the I-GO Car Sharing members’ holiday party

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Even though I don’t use car sharing often, I’m very glad it exists. I live a block away from an I-GO Car Sharing location and I have a membership, but I can easily do almost all my commuting and errands by walking, biking and transit, carrying groceries and such in my bike’s saddlebags. Even if I need to move furniture or large items from the home improvement store I can haul most of these things with my large bike trailer.

So if I check out an I-GO vehicle it’s usually because I’m too lazy to hook up my trailer. As I wrote last week, other than road trips and transporting other people, the main reason I would use a car is to move fragile music gear to gigs. The by-the-hour pay scheme of car sharing makes it impractical for a trip where the car just sits outside the club for three hours while I rock out. (Any I-GO staffers reading this, please reply to this post to let me know if you guys actually offer a plan that makes sense for this kind of trip).

Continue reading Gettin’ down at the I-GO Car Sharing members’ holiday party

Comment of the day: There is no war on cars

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People just want to travel safely. Does that mean there’s a war?

This isn’t gonna be a feature, but as I was reading through and responding to reader comments on my article Breaking down the battle John McCarron wants to start, I was pleased to find a protest to the usage of “war” as a way to describe the evolution of Chicago’s transportation system.

I really find the violent “war” terminology appalling. If there is a war between cars and people biking/walking, only one side is fighting and inflicting casualties — with aggressive, reckless and distracted driving. The rest of us are just trying to get to work in one piece.

It’s from the people at Carfree Chicago.

Switching gears: Two transportation books have arrived on my reading shelf

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The Logan Square Library has a bike rack within 10 feet of the door. If there was an Oscars for bike parking, it’d win the equivalent of Best Picture. 

My normal reading fare consists of spy novels and non-fiction, and science fiction by Isaac Asimov, William Dietz, and William Gibson. But this year I’m changing that up. Join me in my reading of transportation books!

Yesterday I got an email from the Chicago Public Library notifying me that two books I put on hold had come in. I went to the Logan Square branch to pick them up, excited to dive in. You can join my impromptu, unofficial book club, by checking out and discussing with me: Continue reading Switching gears: Two transportation books have arrived on my reading shelf

An update on the Chicago Velo Campus from Emanuele Bianchi

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Bianchi coaches Robert, a teen who lives near the temporary velodrome – photo courtesy of Chicago Velo Campus

Last winter I wrote about the Chicago Velo Campus proposal for a Newcity cover story. The organizers were originally hoping to build a $45 million multisport complex, featuring a velodrome stadium nearly as large as the United Center, by 2013 on the former site of U. S. Steel’s South Works mill, a hump of land on the lakefront between 79th and 92nd.

Although they recently changed their target for construction to 2014, and even that may be an optimistic deadline for this ambitious project, much has already been accomplished. This summer volunteers installed a 166-meter temporary velodrome, made of marine-grade plywood, and an indoor space called the Lakeside Velo Works, containing a bike workshop, indoor training area, bike storage and office space, on U.S. Steel land at 8615 S. Burley.

Continue reading An update on the Chicago Velo Campus from Emanuele Bianchi