Category: Roads

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

The Maya Hirsch settlement will help save the lives of other Chicago children

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Maya Hirsch with her father, courtesy of the Stop for Maya foundation.

On Wednesday Chicago City Council approved a $3.25 million settlement with the family of Maya Hirsch, a four-year-old girl who was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Lincoln Park, possibly due to poorly placed signs and faded crosswalks. Under the Emanuel administration the city has ramped up its efforts to improve pedestrian safety, but the settlement highlights the need to continue these efforts, which will help prevent similar tragedies.

On the afternoon of May 20, 2006, after visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo, Maya and her mother and older brother were crossing the intersection of Belden Avenue and Lincoln Park West to catch a cab when Michael Roth, 57, driving northbound, ran the stop sign. Roth, who had worked as a driving instructor in the early 1980s, but had his driver’s license revoked for several years after two DUI convictions, had a valid license at the time of the crash.

Continue reading The Maya Hirsch settlement will help save the lives of other Chicago children

Kidical Mass tours the 35th Ward to see student transportation plan recommendations

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The Kidical Mass ride starts at 11 AM every second Saturday at Palmer Square Park. This ride was different in that it incorporated stops at places recommended to receive improvements in the 35th Ward Student Active Transportation Plan. 

I joined 40 parents, children, and neighbors, on Saturday, July 14, to ride with Kidical Mass on a special tour of the 35th Ward in conjunction with the planning team of the 35th Ward Student Active Transportation Plan. The team comprised members of Active Transportation Alliance and Sam Schwartz Engineering, both of whom were part of the Streets for Cycling 2020 Plan. Continue reading Kidical Mass tours the 35th Ward to see student transportation plan recommendations

Fatality tracker: Young woman killed by person driving on suspended license

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Photo of shops on Cottage Grove Avenue near 87th Street by Thornton29. 

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 7 (6 have been from hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 3
Transit: 5

Caprice Cunningham, a 23-year-old mother of three children, was killed while riding her bike near the intersection of 87th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in the Chatham neighborhood. Cottage Grove has two lanes in each direction, while 87th Street has a single lane in each direction. The collision happened on Thursday, July 12, 2012. “Cunningham was riding her bike east on 87th Street when she hit the front driver’s side door of a 1964 Ford truck that was northbound on Cottage Grove Avenue, [Chicago Police News Affairs Officer John] Mirabelli said.”

The family is looking for more information about how the crash occurred. From the Chicago Tribune:

While Mirabelli said that a witness provided details to police, the family said they want more witnesses to come forward.

She said she believes the busy intersection has surveillance cameras and they want police to share details of the accident with them.

“We want somebody to come foreword, we want witnesses to come forward, 87th and Cottage, that”s a busy street,” said Michelle Cunningham [relation wasn’t given].

The intersection sees about 40,000 automobiles pass through each day, according to counts conducted by the City in 2006. The intersection is outside any future, potential speed camera zone. Crash data from the Illinois Department of Transportation shows 19 pedestrian-automobile collisions and 1 bicycle-automobile collision at this intersection from 2005-2010 (all “possible injury” or greater, but no fatalities). Including all crash types, there were 307 in the same time period, with no fatalities.

The Chicago Tribune also reported the driver’s history on the road (bottom line, this person, who the police nor the newspaper haven’t identified, wasn’t allowed to be driving):

According to Illinois Secretary of State’s records, the driver [a 29-year-old woman] has a troubled driving history dating back to 2001 when she was ticketed for backing up in an area where this was not allowed.

In 2009 and again in 2010 she was ticketed for speeding. Her license was suspended in 2010 after being convicted for not having injurance and suspended again last year after she failed to get high-risk insurance as required, according to records.

The driver was cited for the following infractions:

  • Driving while license suspended or revoked
  • operating a vehicle without insurance
  • Violating restrictions on her driver’s license [the Chicago Tribune article didn’t specify what these restrictions were]
  • Driving an unsafe vehicle [the Chicago Tribune article didn’t specify what was unsafe about the vehicle]

This Google Street View image is looking east along 87th Street at the intersection with Cottage Grove Avenue, where the bicyclist collided with a northbound ice cream truck. View larger.

The Chicago Sun-Times also reported on this story. Visit Cunningham’s page on Every Bicyclist Counts.

* 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.

Mileage mystery: what does “90 miles outside Chicago” actually mean?

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Photo by Eric Stuve.

[This is a variation of a piece that also runs in Time Out Chicago magazine.]

Q: When a highway sign tells us Chicago is a certain number of miles away, from what point in the city is it measuring: the outermost boundary line or from, say, State and Madison, the zero point of the street grid?

A: Good question. The first lines from the 1999 earworm “Someday We’ll Know” by New Radicals have always bugged us: “90 miles outside Chicago / Can’t stop driving / I don’t know why.” Is the singer talking about the distance to the city limits or downtown? Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Josh Kauffman says it’s the latter. “Highway signage typically refers to the distance to the main business district of city,” he says. “So in Chicago that would be the center of Loop.”

Kauffman couldn’t pinpoint exactly what intersection IDOT considers to be Chicago’s epicenter, but Amy Krouse, spokeswoman for Skokie-based Rand McNally, says mileage between cities is usually calculated from one city hall to another. Accordingly, both Rand McNally’s online mapping service and Mapquest.com locate their Chicago pushpins at LaSalle and Randolph, spitting distance from Rahm’s office. Now we know exactly what Elwood Blues meant when he said, “It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark… and we’re wearing sunglasses.”

Mileage measurements are important to bicycle touring: when you see a sign that your destination town is X miles away, you want to know if that’s to the city center or the edge of town, because every mile counts when you’re pedaling.

Halting words: Klein and Smith discuss the new “Stop for Pedestrians” signs

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CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein and 43rd Ward Alderman Michele Smith. Photo by Steven.

The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) recently began the process of installing hundreds of signs citywide in an effort to educate motorists about the state law requiring them to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk. The signs cost $400 each, sited and installed, a relative bargain for infrastructure that will raise awareness of pedestrian safety, calm traffic and possibly save lives.

At a press conference yesterday in Lincoln Park by the Brown Line’s Diversey station, CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein and 43rd Ward Alderman Michele Smith discussed the benefits of the signs. They also crossed Diversey several times to demonstrate the signs’ effectiveness, with drivers usually, but not always, stopping for them without being prompted. The event was particularly timely because the previous night a young girl named Monet Robinson was killed by a hit-and-run driver on the West Side. Here’s a transcript of Klein’s speech:

Continue reading Halting words: Klein and Smith discuss the new “Stop for Pedestrians” signs