Tag: CDOT

Progression of bike sharing RFP: deadline is approaching

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Madison, Wisconsin, has a B-Cycle bike sharing system. B-Cycle is likely to submit a proposal. Photo by Jeramey Jannene. 

Updated October 16, 2011, to add more information about the station selection task order and provide it for download. 

Proposals for Chicago’s large scale bike sharing system are due to the City of Chicago on or before October 25 – that’s 12 days away! The request for proposals (RFP) was issued on September 21, 2011. I and 29 others attended the pre-proposal conference a week later at City Hall (121 N LaSalle St) on September 28 to meet with Jacoby Radford, contract negotiator with the Department of Procurement Services (DPS), Scott Kubly, the head of the bike sharing project at the Department of Transportation (CDOT), and Ben Gomberg, Bicycle Program coordinator (CDOT).

It seemed that the purpose of the meeting was to get know who vendors would be working with at the City and who they would be up against in the proposal process. Some new information was provided, and Scott explained the City’s aims in building a bike sharing system. But any answers given by the City to attendees were “not official”. Questions had to be submitted in writing after which the City would respond with an RFP addendum. Continue reading Progression of bike sharing RFP: deadline is approaching

Construction has begun on the Jackson protected bike lane (photo gallery)

Crews from Marking Specialists started installing pavement markings on Wednesday, October 5, 2011, continuing on Thursday and Friday. The project’s western extent was pushed to Western Avenue, making it 0.5 miles longer – now at 2 miles long. There are many aspects of this facility that differ from the Kinzie Street protected bike lane, Chicago’s first. John will have a more in-depth article about this project on Tuesday or Wednesday – this is just a photo gallery.

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West of Damen, the eastbound protected bike lane is on the south side of the street. At Damen, it switches to the left side. It’s unclear how bicyclists are expected to make this “crossover”. Continue reading Construction has begun on the Jackson protected bike lane (photo gallery)

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

CDOT giving itself five opportunities to make bridges bicycle friendly

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CDOT will be undertaking rehabilitation work on five bridges and should take the opportunity to advance bridge bike friendliness, like it did recently on Randolph Street. Photo by Christopher Gagnon.

A Grid Chicago reader pointed me to a Request for Proposals (RFP) from the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) for a project that will rehabilitate many bridges and viaducts, mostly in and around the central business district. I discussed several of the bridges listed in the RFP in an article about open grate metal bridges and the hazards they present to people bicycling. A study CDOT commissioned and “published” in 2004 said,

These metal grate bridges…can be difficult and intimidating for a bicyclist to cross. Depending on the type and direction of the grating, grooves can cause a “channeling effect” or “sliding” for bike tires, and narrow tires can be lodged in gaps between the bridge grates. In addition, the metal can become increasingly slippery when wet, making these bridges even more difficult for bicyclists to safely cross in rain or snow.

While CDOT will not repair this problem on safety concerns alone, it should address it during routine bridge renovation.

Continue reading CDOT giving itself five opportunities to make bridges bicycle friendly

Mixed feelings about Chicago’s first Loop bike lane

[flickr]photo:6052421155[/flickr] [All photos courtesy of the Chicago Department of Transportation, except where noted.]

Last Tuesday evening when I first pedaled down the new Madison Street bike lane, crisp white lines on fresh, smooth asphalt, my initial emotion was exhilaration. Just like the first time I rode the Kinzie Street protected bike lane, I was experiencing something that had never been done before in Chicago, and it was a liberating sensation.

For years I’ve wished the city would stripe bike lanes within the central Loop, defined by the Chicago River, Michigan Avenue and the Congress Parkway, but until now this seemed verboten. The taboo against downtown lanes has always struck me as typical of the conservative way the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) did bike improvements under Mayor Daley. The attitude seemed to be that the Central Business District (CBD) was too congested to have bike lanes, when in reality the Loop is too congested NOT to have lanes encouraging people to bicycle instead of driving.

So I was thrilled last week when Steven forwarded a newsletter from 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly announcing that CDOT was striping lanes on Madison from Michigan to Wells. But I confess that a couple blocks into my maiden voyage down the new lane I became a little disappointed. I realized that many cyclists will not feel comfortable riding in the lane because it is marked to the left of a bus-only lane. This means cyclists will be pedaling between two lanes of moving traffic with no protection except paint on the road.

Continue reading Mixed feelings about Chicago’s first Loop bike lane

After Lolla crash CDOT says Queen’s Landing crosswalk will re-open

[flickr]photo:6054914196[/flickr]Fencing installed to keep pedestrians from crossing LSD at Queen’s Landing

[This piece also appears in Time Out Chicago.]

Gabe Klein’s words were eerily prescient. In July I asked the new Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) chief if he’d consider re-installing the signalized crosswalk that had allowed pedestrians to safely cross from Buckingham Fountain to Monroe Harbor for 17 years until Mayor Daley removed it. “I would like to put it back,” he said. “People are crossing anyway and they’re running across Lake Shore Drive.”

On August 6, during Eminem’s set at Lollapalooza, as dozens of kids ran across the drive attempting to jump the fences on the east side of the festival, two young men were struck by a car, sustaining serious-to-critical injuries, as they tried to sprint across the ten lanes of traffic east of the fountain.

Continue reading After Lolla crash CDOT says Queen’s Landing crosswalk will re-open