John Greenfield and I have teamed up to bring you closer to the sustainable transportation issues and culture that matters to Chicagoans and Illinoisans.
We’ll both continue writing for our respective blogs when it doesn’t fit the theme of Grid.
Category: Change
The bollards are in – ’nuff said
Update June 15, 2011: The Chicago Bicycle Program has uploaded 22 photos and videos today. Here’s a video of workers painting the bike box at southbound Milwaukee. Also, I’ve been wrong about a bike-friendly bridge treatment on Kinzie – I don’t have evidence to support this assertion. We’ll see what happens.
Protected bike lane? Yep.
It should be 100x more clear now that cars are not allowed here. But I’m sure we’ll still seem some goof in the bike lane at least once in the next few days.
Crews installed the base, getting ready to install the pole.
And the bridge has bollards as well! No more double-driving on the bridge. Now it’s time for the new bike lane bridge deck!
Brandon Souba took the photos. Thank you so much.
Federal funding primer and why projects take so long to construct
Many Chicagoans who ride bikes are in awe (myself included) at how fast the Kinzie Street protected bike lane (the first of its kind in the city) has been designed and constructed in four weeks.
I explain how it’s been possible to do something so fast:
- Federally funded projects, like “commuter bicycle parking” (u-rack manufacturing and installation, using CMAQ federal funding) in Chicago, are under the control of the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), which must review and approve every design. If it takes IDOT six months to tell the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) it does NOT approve and requires revisions, it will take IDOT another six months to review and approve the revised design. I experienced this directly when I was modifying the current bike parking contract. That’s one extra year added to a project based on a cumbersome state review process. Cities and their mayors have been advocating the federal government to give federal aid directly to cities so they can work faster.
- All design work must be completed and approved by everyone before a contract can be advertised for competitive bidding. Federal funds generally cannot be used to pay for local city forces, like CDOT crews, to do the work.
- Then comes the procurement process…
[This process is nearly the same for all cities.]
While there is room for improvement in the above process, it’s may not be fair to blame the City or CDOT for taking a long time to implement a project like Stony Island (tentatively scheduled for 2014), when Chicago doesn’t have authority over it’s own roads*.
If every project were locally funded – CDOT is funding the project with budgeted but unallocated funds – and approved, we could see a lot more projects like the Kinzie Street protected bike lane happening very fast. It should be obvious, also, that Mayor Emanuel and new CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein are extremely motivated to show their commitment to the transition plan as well as complete this project by the Bike To Work Day Rally on Friday, June 17th.
*This can be interpreted in two ways:
- There are roads in the city that are under the jurisdiction of the state providing an additional burden when it comes to modifying them.
- The process described above removes from the City authoritative control of its roads when projects modifying those roads are funded in part by the federal government.
Construction on Kinzie Street has been happening at a breakneck pace.
Take a look at Day 7 construction on Kinzie Street
This must be the fastest project ever accomplished by city government – or at least this City’s government. The funding source makes a huge difference: The city is using its own money, using “mini capital project” funding that was budgeted but not yet allocated. If the city was using grant money from the state or federal governments, a four-week turnaround time for a protected bike lane would not be possible.
The pace continues at breakneck speed!
On Tuesday, Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) crews were working on both the eastbound and westbound directions on the west side of the Kinzie Street bridge.
Crews work on the eastbound Kinzie Street at Canal Street, right before the bridge. It does not appear there’s a buffer here (guide lines painted before the stripes aren’t seen).
Painting stripes on eastbound Kinzie Street at Canal Street, right before the bridge.
CDOT workers inspect the stripes at the stop bar and crosswalk at eastbound Kinzie Street at Canal Street. It appears the stop bar is further from the crosswalk than at most intersections in Chicago.
Photo of workers (from StreetPrint?) applying green paint to a bike box and left turn lane on southbound Milwaukee at Desplaines/Kinzie. Photo by Thomas Gonzales.
Bike to work week now, but what about next week?
Groupon mentioned on its blog that 126 employees rode to their Chicago office Monday.
Since the city has a goal of having 5% of trips under 5 miles by bicycle*, how do we ensure those same 126 employees ride their bike next week? Or tomorrow even!
With more of this:
A protected bike lane on Kinzie Street. These have been shown to reduce the number of crashes as well as slow down car traffic.
And some of this:
A family riding their bikes on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn, New York City. This bikeway is unique because it has both directions and is protected from traffic by parked cars. Photo by Elizabeth Press.
We’ll also need some left turn bays for bicyclists:
This will help cyclists make safer left turns across intersections. As seen in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Then we’ll see this:
Happy people riding together in our neighborhoods. With lights at night, for sure.
Oh, we’ll probably need additional bike parking, like this station at Amsterdam Zuid station (think Chicago’s Union Station or New York City’s Penn Station):
Free, underground, double-decker bike parking.
*We’re probably somewhere between 0.5% and 1.5% (of trips under 5 miles by bike). No data’s actually available on this; not for the baseline year of 2006 and most likely will not be available for the goal year, 2015.