Tag: Bloomingdale Trail

Top 5 lists: essential parks, walking, biking and transit stories of 2011

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With a refreshingly ped-, bike- and transit-friendly new administration in power, 2011 was a banner year for sustainable transportation in Chicago. For Newcity magazine’s annual “Top 5 of Everything” issue, I submitted the following lists of the most important or interesting walking, bicycling, transit and parks stories of the year. Did I miss anything?

Top 5 Blossoming Chicago Park District Stories

After a mysterious two-year delay, design work finally starts on the Bloomingdale Trail

Chinatown’s serene Ping Tom Park expands north, nearly doubling in size

To fight obesity, 96 field houses get vending machines stocked only with healthy snacks

Planning starts for North Grant Park rehab; ideas include a skate park and a climbing wall

A freak summer hailstorm ravages the Garfield Park Conservatory, closing several rooms Continue reading Top 5 lists: essential parks, walking, biking and transit stories of 2011

Talking transportation with 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack

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[This piece also runs on the Chicago web publication Gapers Block.]

As part of an ongoing project to interview all 50 of Chicago’s aldermen about sustainable transportation issues in their districts, I recently caught up with Scott Waguespack at the 32nd Ward service office, 2657 N. Clybourn. His ward includes parts of Ukrainian Village, Wicker Park, Bucktown, Goose Island, Lincoln Park, Lakeview and Roscoe Village.

In 2007 Waguespack defeated Richard M. Daley-backed incumbent Ted Matlak and soon gained a reputation as an independent voice in City Council. Most famously, he was the leading critic of Daley’s push to privatize the city’s parking meters, a move that the former mayor would eventually admit, “we totally screwed up.” Continue reading Talking transportation with 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack

Let’s get a bike counter in Chicago

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A bike counter is a nice way of saying, “Hey, the city values you for riding your bike”. It’s currently 1°C at 9:21 AM on January 10, 2011, in Copenhagen, Denmark. So far today, 2,142 people have biked past this counter (only in this direction, westbound). 43,504 have biked past in 2011 (again, westbound) and it’s only the 10th day of the year.

Marisa Paulson at The Northwest Passage* writes about last week’s public meeting for Park 567 at Milwaukee Avenue and Leavitt Avenue in Wicker Park. “Park 567” is a proposed access point for the Bloomingdale Trail. I really like what one of the project organizers said in response to respecting the history of Milwaukee Avenue (I guess very recent history).
Continue reading Let’s get a bike counter in Chicago

Bloomingdale Trail public involvement process reached a milestone this week

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A view of the Bloomingdale Trail at Spaulding Avenue. At least one person in the audience asked for a rail car or two remain in the new park. Photo by Colin Clinard. 

On the evening of Tuesday, October 4, 2011, I attended the final presentation from the Bloomingdale “charrette weekend” at the McCormick Tribune YMCA, 1834 N Lawndale. The charrette weekend hosted invited stakeholders and members of the public who gathered with the design team to learn about the Bloomingdale Trail history, devise the topics they cared about, and express ideas and concerns about the project. For 16 hours on Monday and Tuesday, the design team synthesized all of the conversations, contribution, and ideas into a final presentation that took about 90 minutes to examine.

What follows is a detailed description of who said what about the project. I’ve divided the article into many sections with bold text headings for easier reading. I imagine that this article will evolve as people ask me questions. Continue reading Bloomingdale Trail public involvement process reached a milestone this week

Weekend events: two ciclovías, two Bloomingdale Trail charrettes, and two bike rides

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A car-free Ridge Avenue in Evanston, Illinois. Photo by Esther Chicago.

It’s a busy weekend for bicycling events and the next step in the Bloomingdale Trail design process. The weather forecast on AccuWeather.com shows sunny and 60°F on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Open Streets
10 AM to 3 PM
1 N State Street

Enjoy the ultimate urban playground as State Street opens for pedestrians only to play, walk, bike and enjoy healthy recreation in the heart of the Loop on a seven-block stretch of State Street, from Lake Street to Van Buren Street, into an urban playground for all ages, Saturday, October 1, from 10 AM to 3 PM.
Continue reading Weekend events: two ciclovías, two Bloomingdale Trail charrettes, and two bike rides

Imprecisions in widely shared Reuters article on Chicago biking

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People ride their bikes across the point at which Milwaukee Avenue was measured to have a mode share of 22% bicycles. 

These are important to mention because they will be shared again and again. While nothing was inaccurate, there was definitely space to clarify and expand. Original article.

1. “[Gabe] Klein hopes the percentage of trips taken by bike will rise from under 2 percent to 5 percent”

The percentage of “trips taken by bike” (for any purpose) is not known. We only know the percentage of trips taken by bike to work, and it stands at 1.4% right now.

The goal of the Bike 2015 Plan is to have 5 percent of all trips under 5 miles be by bike. But we won’t know when we achieve that because we lack baseline data: no survey collects the data on trips by bike for all purposes and categorizes them by distance – there was a household travel survey in 2007-2008 from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), but only for counties and not Chicago. I have written many times before about the “missing data” and baseline data problem: One, two, three, four.

Continue reading Imprecisions in widely shared Reuters article on Chicago biking