Well, Mayor Rahm Emanuel only promised one: 100 miles of protected bike lanes. But as I pointed out on Friday, July 22, 2011, there are 25 bridges that are still hostile to cycling.
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If you can see the water below, you’re on an open metal grate bridge. But don’t look down as you may lose your balance. Continue reading Still to go: 99.5 miles of protected bike lanes, 25 bridges
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The city’s first on-street bike parking facility (or bike corral) was installed in Wicker Park this morning by crews from Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT). See more photos from the installation this morning.
Friday, July 29, 2011
5 PM
Flat Iron Arts Building
1579 N Milwaukee Avenue
Join Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein, 1st Ward Alderman Joe Moreno, Bicycle Parking Program Manager Christopher Gagnon, and Wicker Park-Bucktown Special Service Area Manager Eleanor Mayer to celebrate the city’s first bike corral. Then cross the street to Francesca’s Forno for drinks and refreshments.
Read more about Grid Chicago’s coverage of this on-street bike parking installation.
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CDOT crews install the Tuff Curb on the southeast side of the bike corral.
[flickr]photo:5983814572[/flickr]Pete Stidman with a rental from Bike and Roll Chicago
Pete Stidman, Executive Director of the Boston Cyclists Union, came to Chicago last week for a meet-up of the Alliance for Biking and Walking, and crashed on my futon while he was in town. The cyclists union is a young organization with only a few hundred members, but it’s already having an impact on getting more bicycle lanes, bike parking and a cycle track built in Boston, a city which has been notoriously bike-unfriendly in the past. One of the union’s most exciting programs is Bike to Market, with volunteers repairing over 600 bikes for free at farmers markets in underserved neighborhoods. Stidman told me more about his organization and gave me his impressions of bicycling in Chicago.
Continue reading Impressions of Chicago from the head of the Boston Cyclists Union
Update: If you want to know what residents think, avoid the comments section on the Tribune article and head straight to the discussion on EveryBlock. Added Reverend Stein’s letter to the editor (scroll to end) on August 12, 2011.
Alderman Colón (35th Ward) told Moving Design participants last Wednesday that his office fields more calls about parking than gangs or drugs.
The City Council acts faster on parking issues than the others: the importance of parking manifested in March and June 2011 when the City Council passed two ordinances to turn certain stretches of travel lanes on the Logan Square boulevard network into legal and unmetered parking spaces.
Was there backdoor dealing?
News of the street transformation came to light this week, thanks to Jon Hilkevitch at the Chicago Tribune. Passed without any public review, “[residents] fear the move led by 35th Ward Ald. Rey Colon to establish free parking along parts of Logan, Kedzie and Humboldt boulevards, where open parkways foster a feeling of airiness, will make the grand roads seem like parking lots. Logan Square, some residents warn, could become too much of a good thing, like crowded and always bustling Lincoln Park.”
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The map shows the four distinct stretches of boulevards in Logan Square that now offer many hours of free parking each week. Created with QGIS and Adobe Illustrator using data from the City of Chicago. Continue reading Future plans for Logan Square now stymied by new parking ordinance
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Silversmith and fur trader John Kinzie was one of Chicago’s first settlers, so it’s appropriate that a pioneering bicycle facility was built on his namesake street. Yesterday was the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Kinzie Street protected bike lane, the city’s first, which runs a half mile between Milwaukee Avenue and Wells Street.
Staffers from the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), downtown alderman Brendan Reilly’s office, the Active Transportation Alliance and SRAM, a local bike parts company, were there to celebrate. There were only a handful of civilian cyclists present, partly due to the 11 am start time. The city’s Bicycling Ambassadors and Junior Ambassadors were out in force and the freaky marching band Environmental Encroachment provided a spirited soundtrack.
With the fragrant Blommer Chocolate factory as a backdrop, CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein, nattily dressed in a white suit, gave opening remarks. He stressed the importance of the new bike lane, which protects cyclists from moving traffic via flexible bollards and a line of parked cars, in encouraging more people to try urban cycling. “If you want to change people’s behavior and make if feel like it’s safe to walk and bike, you’ve got to make it safer,” he said.
Bombardier, of Montréal, Québec, announced via a press release on its website Wednesday, July 20, 2011, that the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), has exercised an option in its contract for the 5000-series rail cars that expands the number of cars on order by 300, to 706 cars.
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You may have seen the CTA testing its new train cars – at least one of the cars is painted like in the photo above. The first of the incoming new cars will be used on the Blue Line. Photo by Jeff Zoline.
According to the CTA’s first press release about ordering these trains in 2006, 200 cars were initially ordered, then another 206, and now the final 300 cars available in the original contract.
This announcement will no doubt bring unwarranted criticism against the CTA, centering around the CTA’s budget and how the agency must cut service and raise fares to stay operational. “If the CTA has $933 million to pay for new train cars, how come it doesn’t have money to run a bus route past 7 PM?”
Continue reading Bombardier building 706 rail cars for CTA and Congress’s view of transit