Category: Walking

From safety to where? Discussing the future of safe streets at a CNU talk

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Rob Bielaski, Steven, Mark de la Vergne, Eric Dumbaugh.

By coincidence both Steven and I recently appeared on two different panels about sustainable transportation within a few days of each other. Last Thursday I was part of the talk “Chicago Cycling: What’s Next?” at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in conjunction with their “Bikes! The Green Revolution” exhibit. Monday Steven participated in the discussion “Safe Streets,” hosted by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) at the Jefferson Tap, 325 N. Jefferson in the West Loop. The panelists talked about what makes streets safe, and discussed new developments in Chicago street design.

Based in Chicago and headed my former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist, CNU is a nonprofit that promotes walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly, mixed-use development. Joining Steven on the panel, which doubled as CNU’s monthly happy hour, were Eric Dumbaugh, an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University who has authored more than forty books about transportation and urban planning, and Mark de la Vergne, a project manager at Sam Schwartz Engineering who has worked on Chicago’s pedestrian plan, the Streets for Cycling 2020 plan, and will be involved with siting and outreach for the city’s upcoming bike sharing program.

Continue reading From safety to where? Discussing the future of safe streets at a CNU talk

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

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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

Gimme shelter: pedestrian improvements to Congress Parkway

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New crosswalk with pedestrian refuge island at Congress and Dearborn.

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

Folks who walked to the Printers Row Lit Fest last weekend were a little less likely be killed by cars than in previous years. The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) is currently wrapping up the $18 million Congress Parkway Reconstruction Project, from Wells Street to Michigan Avenue. The rehab has already brought a slew of pedestrian safety improvements, including new pedestrian refuge islands, making it safer, easier and more pleasant to walk across and along the massive street that forms the southern boundary of the Loop.

Construction on Congress began in October 2010 and the road reopened to traffic on May 15, just in time for the NATO summit. CDOT expects the final tasks, including finishing planter medians and installing decorative trellises and lighting, will be done by June 30.

Congress has long been an iconic Chicago street, but it has also been a major barrier to foot traffic. Originally called Tyler Street after tenth U.S. President John Tyler, the name was changed to honor the U.S. Congress after Tyler became unpopular because he joined the Confederacy during the Civil War. The road originates as a freeway at the Circle Interchange, the junction of the Dan Ryan, Eisenhower and Kennedy Expressways, and then continues east to become an eight-lane surface road at Wells Street, dumping high-speed traffic into the street grid.

Continue reading Gimme shelter: pedestrian improvements to Congress Parkway

Does the City of Chicago do enough to keep pedestrians and bicyclists safe?

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“Biker Boy” by Alice Dubois. Alice’s paintings are on display this month at Charmers Cafe, 1500 W. Jarvis, and the Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington.

[Ed. note: This article was contributed by Carly Syms, a grad student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. The piece also appears on the Medill Reports website. Carly completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin. She eventually wants to get into sports journalism.]

Chicagoans are speaking out about the city’s active transportation initiatives amidst growing research that shows walking and biking to work can result in extensive health benefits.

One of the biggest improvement projects under way is the Bike 2015 Plan, which the city says is meant to “make bicycling an integral part of daily life in Chicago,” and for many residents, that begins with safety.

John Greenfield, co-founder of GridChicago.com, a blog dedicated to local transportation concerns, said that while many of the city’s initiatives have yielded positive results, there’s still room for improvement.

“Too much car traffic is one of the main obstacles to safe, pleasant conditions for walking, biking and transit use,” Greenfield said. “I’d like to see policymakers doing more to discourage driving and fund healthier modes.”

Continue reading Does the City of Chicago do enough to keep pedestrians and bicyclists safe?

Does the new “tied arch” bridge on Halsted encourage speeding?

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Approaching the new bridge from the south. Here there are two travel lanes, bike lanes and parking lanes.

When new bridges are built in Chicago, the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) generally requires that they be built to accommodate projected traffic demands. The assumption is that in the future there will be more people driving than ever before, although most of us hope this won’t be the case.

So when the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) rebuilt the North Damen Avenue bridge over the Chicago River in 2002, IDOT insisted that the old two-lane bridge be replaced with a four-lane, although Damen is generally only a two-lane street. But as a rule, if you give Chicago drivers the opportunity to speed, they will.

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that as soon as the new bridge opened, motorists took advantage of the new half mile of wide open space between stoplights at Fullerton and Diversey to put the pedal to the metal. The speeding cars, plus the fact that bike lanes weren’t included in the project, turned a formerly bikeable bridge on a recommended bike route into a hostile environment for cyclists.

Continue reading Does the new “tied arch” bridge on Halsted encourage speeding?

Grid Shots: Challenging weather

Hail on Thursday, rain and flooding Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Grid Shots this week is about weather challenging our transportation system. And our transportation modes.

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Group bike ride to protest coal-powered plants in Chicago which Community Voicebox participated in. Mayor Emanuel brokered a deal with Midwest Generation to have them shut down by the end of 2012. My photo.  Continue reading Grid Shots: Challenging weather