Category: Chicago

I am not your representative

May 3, 2012 / / 0 Comments

This guy showed up. Why didn’t you?

I’ve struggled inviting friends and peers to the Streets for Cycling Plan 2020 public meetings and open houses. A couple of said something along the lines of “I don’t need to go if you’re going”.

That’s not my job.

My job is to tell you what happened. But you have to show up. You have to increase the numbers of people who are demanding changed streets. I am one person, with a blog. When I put my name on the sign-in sheet, or leave a comment, I am only signing my own name, not the names of my blog’s readers, or my friends and neighbors.

There are 4 more meetings. The draft network will be presented there. This is basically your last chance to affect what the final plan will say. What kinds of things will it say? It will make recommendations as to which type of bikeways will go where. Want a protected bike lane and road diet on Chicago Avenue, because there’s so much retail and services you want to visit, but people are driving too fast? Yeah, go to the meeting and make sure it’s on there.

These people showed up. Were you there? Photos are from the Sulzer Library event on February 1, 2012. 

Where else is it hard to “be a pedestrian” in Chicago?

April 30, 2012 / / 0 Comments

I’m researching for an article about the many places in Chicago where pedestrian facilities should be improved. This is not about the lack of pedestrian safety in Chicago, but about deliberate designs that place push buttons or street crossing out of reach for some residents. So far this is what I’ve got.

Jackson Drive to cross Lake Shore Drive. To press the crosswalk signal activation button you have to step in a big mess of mud.

Robinson Street to cross Ashland Avenue. To press the crosswalk signal activation button you have to reach over or through a fence.

Southwest corner of Kinzie Street at Clark Street. There are no ramps at this crosswalk. A short distance west of here on the south side of Kinzie Street there are also stairs to traverse.

Where are there others?

N.B. While the word “pedestrian” is based on the word for “feet” in other languages, a pedestrian is considered anyone who isn’t getting around on a bicycle or automobile and uses the sidewalk. People using wheelchairs are grouped into “pedestrians” along with those who don’t.

My new favorite traffic crash impact analogy, as heard at a meeting about a road diet

April 27, 2012 / / 0 Comments

At Wednesday night’s community meeting at the University of Chicago Alumni House (5555 S Woodlawn) in Hyde Park about a proposed road diet and installation of protected bike lanes on 55th Street, a resident spoke up and asked about possible negative bus and bicycle interactions in the shared space bus stops.

In the proposed street reconfiguration plan, bus stops remain at the curb. The protected bike lane is curbside as well. Where they overlap, an unprotected bike lane “occurs” around the space created for the bus stop.

He likened the interaction to this (which is paraphrased): “It doesn’t matter if a rock falls on a melon, or if a melon falls on a rock, the melon still cracks open”.

This city now runs on bikes and bees

April 19, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Bicycling in Chicago is as much about having cheap transportation* as a thing to build new and maintain existing social relationships. And sometimes everything can come together in such an awesome way that you build a freakin’ business on the back of a bicycle.

I also posted about this on Grid Chicago.

Such is the case with many of my friends, including Jana Kinsman and Brandon Gobel. Jana created Bike-A-Bike and got several thousands of “startup” dollars via her Kickstarter. Brandon uses his sweet Bullitt to deliver odds and ends around town. And on April 3, 2012 (and other days), Brandon got to help Jana deliver beehives. They were empty that day but they went out on Wednesday, April 18, 2012, with real, live bees in his Bullitt’s aluminum box.

Here’s a 22 photo slideshow of the April 3 trip. Brandon sent me a bunch of photos from the April 18 trip and I’ll add those to the slideshow soon. Just come back in a day and they will be on this page, and on my Flickr.

You’ll find the bees buzzing in East Garfield Park and at The “Awesome” Plant (er, just The Plant) in Back of the Yards.

* I’ve seen a lot of polls ask, “Why do you bike?” and they always have answers I don’t care about. Like, “for fun”, or “for the environment”. Yeah, right. The most significant motivator for why people do anything is how much it costs them. Bicycling is cheap, nearly free. The bus is downright expensive compared to it, and driving a car everywhere (like 60 miles round trip to work) is personal economic suicide.

Cargo Bike Roll Call equivalent across the pond

April 17, 2012 / / 0 Comments

The Cargo Bike Roll Call equivalent in Nijmegen, Netherlands, is called Bakfietsdag, or “box bike day”. The city is pronounced “nigh-may-hen” and is the home of a very awesome bridge that only carries trains and bikes.

Photo by Daniel Farrell. All other photos by Jan Beeldrijk.

See the full set of photos from my friend Jan’s photostream. I met Jan in Utrecht, and we rode our bikes from the Utrecht train station, through town, to nearby Houten, and then back to Utrecht. We visited the Spoorwegmuseum, too!

I am planning for the second annual Cargo Bike Roll Call. I held the first at West Town Bikes in September 2011. It’ll again be at West Town Bikes (Division Street and Campbell Street), but I’m aiming for June and I hope to have a street closure permit so we can (legally) take up more space this time. The police were friendly in our encounters last year, asking us to keep the beer inside and then asking us to stay in the parking lane and parkway. But this party is only going to get bigger.

I like this Long John’s design: instead of the cargo area being above the “forward” or “cargo tube”, it’s on the sides. I don’t know what advantages of disadvantages this has. You can also tell this bike was “homemade”. Another kind of Long John-style cargo bike is the Larry vs. Harry Bullitt, also spotted at Bakfietsdag.