Tag: Jane Healy

Island delights: a bike tour of Blue Island with Active Trans’ Jane Healy

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Jane Healy, Mike Healy and Jason Berry.

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

Jane Healy is a diehard booster of the blue-collar south suburb of Blue Island, and she’s the ultimate biker mama. [I borrowed this phrase from J. Harry Wray’s book Pedal Power, which also profiles Jane, since I couldn’t think of a better term to describe her.] Along with her husband Mike and kids Will, Katie and Genevieve, she usually pedals to get around this scruffy railroad town of some 22,500 people, located just south of Chicago and straddling the Calumet-Sag Channel. Jane is board president of the Active Transportation Alliance advocacy group, and she’s been spearheading Blue Island’s current bike boom, helping get hundreds of local kids jazzed about cycling.

Continue reading Island delights: a bike tour of Blue Island with Active Trans’ Jane Healy

Last week’s South Side Streets for Cycling meeting

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Peter Taylor points out a route on the Southeast Side

Last Wednesday I put my bicycle on the Red Line, rode down to 95th Street and pedaled over to the Woodson Library, 9525 S. Halsted in Longwood Manor, for the second of three public meetings for the Streets for Cycling Plan 2020. Read Steven’s recap of the previous week’s session at the Garfield Park Conservatory here.

The last meeting of the series takes place this evening from 6-8 pm at the Sulzer Library, 4455 N. Lincoln Lincoln Square. If you can’t make it, there are also webinars you can attend online on Friday and Monday from noon to 1 pm.

Continue reading Last week’s South Side Streets for Cycling meeting

People will pay more to live near a bike trail

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The Illinois Prairie Path as it passes through Elmhurst, Illinois. Photo by Clark Maxwell. 

New research from two University of Cincinnati professors suggest that people are willing to pay more for a house near a multi-use trail. But research on this topic is hardly conclusive. There are studies that suggest the same, and others that suggest the opposite. Research is based on stated preferences (what people say they want; perception) or revealed preferences (using data that shows people’s choices; voting with your dollar). Continue reading People will pay more to live near a bike trail