Category: Commentary

GM hired a transit rider to promote their Volt, I think

May 17, 2012 / / 0 Comments

A screenshot of the GM Chevy Volt ad I saw on Hulu. 

If you’re like me and most Americans, you probably see an advertisement for a car at least once a day. In an ad I watched on Hulu tonight, it appears GM filmed someone who takes buses and trains (or rides her bike) to sell people on the Chevy Volt.

The woman (the ad’s overlay text makes it seem like she’s a real owner) says, “I don’t event know what it’s like to stop and get gas” and “I am probably going to the gas station about once a month, probably less”.

With a car that only gets 35 MPG city, 40 MPG highway,* and has a range of 379 miles, she must be taking the bus for all those other trips she has to make each month! Or she walks to work each day and bikes to the grocery store on weekends. Or she just rarely leaves the house. But I don’t think the ad implies any of these things: instead it’s telling viewers that this automobile has amazing gas mileage (the ad never mentions it has an electric motor component).

The “average American” makes 3.79 trips per day with an average trip length of 9.75 miles. If this Volt driver was that average person, she would be driving 1,108.58 miles every 30 days. And her car doesn’t have that much range. It has a third of that.

She might have bad memory, though, about visiting gas stations.

The Toyota Prius, for comparison, gets 51 MPG city, 48 MPG highway,* and starts at $7,000 less.

* These are only estimates. The Chevy Volt gets 94 MPGe when running on purely the electric motors.

N.B. The Chevy Volt website shows a photo of the car in the position where it will spend most of the time: parked. I appreciate that accuracy!

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. 

No more drive throughs, please

March 12, 2012 / / 0 Comments

People drive their cars in and out of the parking lot for Micro Center, Joann Fabrics, and other stores in this strip mall on Elston Avenue. This design is almost inherently unfriendly to bicycle and walking transportation. But it doesn’t have to be. 

One reason that makes dense, urban areas pleasant and pleasurable is their walkability, variations in land uses, and architectural designs. When you walk down Belmont Street at Sheffield and encounter a new business or restaurant every 25 feet, you’re interested. Interested and curious in what others are doing, what new food you can eat, or what you will experience.

Photo of Belmont Street shopping and graffiti by Oscar Arriola. 

The opposite of this is Elston Avenue, between Ashland and Western Avenues. This stretch is marked by curb cuts, driveways, and seas of parking. Add in the lack of a bus route or nearby ‘L’ station, and you’ve got an environment that’s downright hostile to users of sustainable transportation modes.

I am still doing research for my article on the “pedestrian street” designation. In my research, I’ve learned a lot about the Zoning Board of Appeals, Special Use Permits, and drive throughs. I still haven’t been able to locate studies or reports about the effects drive throughs have on traffic or neighborhoods.

Just in the past 5 days, I’ve found out about the following news:

  1. The McDonald’s at Western Avenue and Milwaukee Avenue (1951 N Western Avenue) is seeking a special use permit. For what, I don’t know. It could just be a rumor. This is the same McDonald’s whose drive through someone so desperately needed to access and almost hit me with their SUV (see image below).
  2. Nodarse Family, LLC, is seeking a special use permit at 1646-1663 N Western Avenue for “the establishment of a one-lane drive-thru facility to serve a proposed 1-story restaurant”.

When I look at Street View for the 1646-1663 N Western location I see several homes and an empty lot with a car parked in it. The address seems to be a mistake, as 1663 is across the street. And even though this is a residential area, it’s zoned B3-2*.

In Mayor Emanuel’s “interest” (more like a selective, here not there, interest) for transparency, I’d like to see information that’s easier to find and process. For news from Zoning Board of Appeals, a blog-like website that lists all permits being considered and permits recently issued would be very helpful. I could subscribe via RSS and get notified of special use applications.

What’s a special use permit?

A special use permit is needed when the developer doesn’t have the right to build something that requires a special use permit. Like establishments for day laborers. Or drive throughs. Or businesses that sell liquor. Or a pawn shop. Speaking of pawn shops, Nodarse Family, LLC, owns the property 2826 N Milwaukee, for which the owner is seeking a special use permit to open one. This is in the 35th Ward, the same ward whose Alderman seems to have it out to build as much parking as can be built. You can see these applications on the ZBA’s agendas.

I’m not a fan of drive throughs.

B3-2: “Community shopping – destination oriented, no limit on size of commercial establishment. Allows dwelling units above ground floor.”

A before shot of Chicago’s first bike boulevard, and facility semantics

February 5, 2012 / / 0 Comments

It looks like nothing now. It’s just a street with mixed one-way and two-way segments. The bike boulevard’s best idea is making it two-way for bicycling. One-way streets are annoying, especially to people new to the neighborhood (like when visiting friends). The route is Berteau Avenue, the site of the first bike boulevard, from Lincoln Avenue on the west to Clark Street on the east (dead ending at Graceland Cemetery).

Article updated February 6, 2012, 11:30, to add photo of Portland bioswale. 

Berteau Avenue - future bike boulevard

The eastern “entrance” to the bike boulevard.

CDOT is calling it instead a “neighborhood greenway”. I don’t know what’s so “greenway” about it, even after John’s interview with Mike Amsden of CDOT for Grid Chicago. Portland and Seattle have very specific stormwater management features built into their neighborhood greenways, so the names make more sense there. Chicago has a stormwater mismanagement feature: Deep Tunnel (or TARP; see more articles I wrote), where we are trying to build ourselves out of flooding. But it’s not possible. During every major rain storm we have to open the sewers and dump untreated stormwater and sewage into Lake Michigan. Many beaches close the next day.

A real bioswale

A bioswale in Portland, at the corner of SE Clay Street and SE 12th Avenue, collects water runoff from the street and sidewalks. The plants in the bioswale absorb the water they can; other water is cleaned and absorbed into the soil where it slowly enters the earth. The earth is probably the only underground reservoir we need. 

I understand the idea behind removing “bike” from the facility’s name, as the project is about traffic calming and making it safer and smoother for all transportation modes to maneuver on this street. That’s fine, but I’m hoping for bioswales and other features to be included in this facility.

Berteau Avenue - future bike boulevard

Berteau Avenue probably needs some new asphalt before the bike boulevard (or “neighborhood greenway” is developed).

This photo reminds me to ask CDOT if a repaving is part of the project. I presume it will be because it’s very dumb to install new pavement markings on bad pavement (but it happened at least once last year, on Armitage Avenue east of Western Avenue).

Berteau Avenue - future bike boulevard

Courtenay School, which is on Berteau Avenue

I agree with the notion that streets with schools receive a higher priority than streets without, but I don’t think they should be weighted higher than streets with high bicycling volume or crashes (I don’t know exactly if there’s such a detailed weighting system in the bikeway planning section of the Chicago Bicycle Program).

Berteau Avenue - future bike boulevard

A Brown Line train passes an office building

There’s at least one building with active businesses on the route. This one has the EveryBlock headquarters inside.

Berteau Avenue - future bike boulevard

Regional rail trains pass here

Metra is rebuilding tens of viaducts on the Union Pacific North line, including this one over Berteau. Not all the streets have underpasses so Berteau was a natural choice as an east-west route in the neighborhood because of this barrier.

I took all of these photos with a Panasonic GH1, and accompanying lens, a LUMIX G 20/f1.7mm.

More discussion on this is in the comments below, on The Chainlink, on Grid Chicago, and on EveryBlock.