Tag: CDOT

Grid Bits: Street crossings

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Queen’s Landing won’t look like this on Friday: there’ll be a crosswalk and signal here. 

As you consider how you’ll walk to the store tomorrow for some gifts from our guide, know that several people are trying to make street crossings safer. This post is a roundup of different news about how street crossings are changing (for the better) in Chicago.

1. Queen’s Landing

I briefly reported on this two Sundays ago in Grid Shots: Pedestrian access edition. The new crosswalk opened today.

2. Crossing Western Avenue in the 47th Ward

In Alderman Pawar’s email newsletter on Wednesday, he mentioned that he requested CDOT to improve pedestrian signal timings at Western and Sunnywide, Western and Irving Park, and Western and Waveland. “Over the summer I learned that families, school children and senior citizens in our ward have experienced trouble crossing [these intersections]”. Continue reading Grid Bits: Street crossings

Can you get hit by a train while biking across the Cherry Avenue Bridge?

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Photo by John – all others by Steven except where noted

Last month while exploring bits and piece of trails and riverwalks that run alongside the North Branch of the Chicago River, I biked over the Cherry Avenue Bridge, an old railroad bridge connecting Goose Island to North Avenue. The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) recently converted the bridge to serve pedestrians and bicyclists, with rubber between the rails and the decking to make the surface safer to pedal over.

But I was alarmed to see a sign reading “Caution / Active Rail / Yield to Trains.” Was I really in danger of being flattened by a locomotive? I tracked down the project manager, chief bridge engineer Daniel Burke, to get the skinny.

Continue reading Can you get hit by a train while biking across the Cherry Avenue Bridge?

Project watch: 18th Street and Jackson Boulevard protected bike lanes

Two Grid Chicago Bike Lane Correspondents have sent photos and videos that show the few-days old construction of a protected bike lane on 18th Street between Clark and Canal Streets, a half-mile stretch between South Loop/Chinatown and Pilsen. It’s in the very early stages of construction and it looks to have a design very similar to existing Kinzie Street and fellow, in-progress cycle track, Jackson Boulevard. As we noted before, plates to cover the open metal grate bridge will come in 2012.

[flickr]photo:6330214662[/flickr] Continue reading Project watch: 18th Street and Jackson Boulevard protected bike lanes

Mannequins remind drivers and pedestrians to travel safely

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32 ghostly-white figures line the north side of Wacker between Wabash and Clark, but they’re not Halloween decorations. These mannequins, male and female, wear black t-shirts reading “One of 32 pedestrians killed last year in Chicago.” On the back the shirts read “It’s up to you. Be Alert. Be Safe. We’re all pedestrians.” These dummies are part of the city’s new shock-and-awe campaign to raise awareness of pedestrian safety issues and reduce crashes. The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) is spearheading the initiative with the help of the Chicago Police Department, funded by a grant of almost $550,000 from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Continue reading Mannequins remind drivers and pedestrians to travel safely

CDOT launches pedestrian safety campaign

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Photo of attention-grabbing mannequins on Wacker Drive represent the 32 people in 2010 who, while walking, were killed by drivers and automobiles in Chicago. Photo by Kevin Zolkiewicz.

Grid Chicago reader Kevin Zolkiewicz has written about the City of Chicago’s campaign to reduce pedestrian fatalities to zero by 2020.

Among the most visible of the initiatives are 32 mannequins that have been installed along Wacker Drive between Wells Street and Michigan Avenue. Each mannequin represents a pedestrian killed in Chicago last year. Klein hopes that the mannequins, combined with other campaign ads that will be plastered on buses, street furniture, and trash bins throughout the city, will encourage drivers to stay alert for pedestrians.

CDOT’s pedestrian safety campaign will involve 15 different initiatives — ranging from awareness campaigns to enforcement — that the agency hopes will change driver behavior and make the city a safer place for pedestrians. Read the full article.

Grid Chicago’s John Greenfield also attended the press conference this morning at 10 AM at Wacker and Wabash and will be writing about it for tomorrow’s feature.

By my count, using data from the Illinois Department of Transportation, there were 3,064 reported crashes in which at least one person labeled a “pedestrian” was involved. There were several crashes where more than one pedestrian was involved, but I selected unique case numbers from the dataset. I was able to agree that there were 32 pedestrian fatalities in 2010. No crash had more than one pedestrian fatality.

There were no pedestrian fatalities in crashes where the “cause code” was “distracted by phone or electronic communication device” or “distracted by other electronic device (including DVD and GPS)”. Only 8 crashes had one of those cause codes.

According to the Chicago Department of Transportation on Twitter, the mannequins will be visiting other neighborhoods. 

After zero public input on protected lanes so far, community meetings are on the horizon

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Photo by Joshua Koonce. 

I was recently quoted in the Chicago News Cooperative and The New York Times about protected bike lanes. I said, “There’s been zero public outreach on where the bike lanes should go“. I think it’s a powerful statement.

I will describe how that’s true now and how that’s expected to change in the near future. Continue reading After zero public input on protected lanes so far, community meetings are on the horizon