Kidical Mass – Grid Chicago

Kidical Mass tours the 35th Ward to see student transportation plan recommendations

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The Kidical Mass ride starts at 11 AM every second Saturday at Palmer Square Park. This ride was different in that it incorporated stops at places recommended to receive improvements in the 35th Ward Student Active Transportation Plan.

I joined 40 parents, children, and neighbors, on Saturday, July 14, to ride with Kidical Mass on a special tour of the 35th Ward in conjunction with the planning team of the 35th Ward Student Active Transportation Plan. The team comprised members of Active Transportation Alliance and Sam Schwartz Engineering, both of whom were part of the Streets for Cycling 2020 Plan. Continue reading Kidical Mass tours the 35th Ward to see student transportation plan recommendations

Grid Shots: Community gardens

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The @ward1bike #Twitterbike at a garden. Photo by John Lankford.

After some debating with John Lankford about this, I gave in to create the Grid Shots theme of “community gardens”. He sent me the first photo to feature (above). The bottom line, that won me over, was that a lot of people bike to their community gardens. I’ve even biked to a community garden myself, with Brandon Gobel and Jana Kinsman, to deliver beehives. Continue reading Grid Shots: Community gardens

Kidical Mass video

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Photo of a family participating in Kidical Mass by Sherry Keating.

If you’re a Chicago parent and you want to cycle with your children, I invite you to check out Kidical Mass, “Critical Mass for the smaller set”. It’s a monthly, slow bike ride starting at Palmer Square Park (3064 W Palmer Blvd) for families. The next ride is December 10, 2011, at 10:30 AM.

Marisa Paulson published an introductory video at The Northwest Passage, embedded below. The video features short interviews with three Logan Square parents talking about why they ride in Kidical Mass.

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Watch the video on Vimeo. Elizabeth Bartom posted more photos.

A visitor’s guide to biking in Chicago

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A view of downtown from Promontory Point, about 55th Street and the Lakefront Trail.

Back in 2008, Momentum magazine invited me to write a roundup of the Chicago bicycle scene. The current issue of Momentum features this new guide to biking in Chicago, especially geared for visitors to the city but hopefully of interest to locals as well. Comparing the two pieces shows there have been a lot of exciting developments here in the last three years! Print space was limited so I couldn’t include every great cycling event, not-for-profit, bike shop, etc., that I would have liked to, but feel free to to comment if you think I left out anything crucial.

The city of Chicago by the numbers, courtesy of the Chicago Department of Transportation Bicycle Program:
2.7 million people
227 square miles
.5 miles of car-separated cycle tracks
123 miles of on-street bike lanes
33 miles of marked shared lanes AKA “sharrows”
50 miles of paved, off-street bike paths
12,265 on-street bike parking racks, more than any other U.S. city
60,000 people educated about safety by the city’s Bicycling Ambassadors in 2010
100 B-cycle bike share vehicles at six kiosks
300 parking spaces, showers and lockers at the Millennium Park bicycle station Continue reading A visitor’s guide to biking in Chicago