Category: Environment

Randy Neufeld’s 10 ideas for bicycling in Chicago

June 22, 2010 / / 0 Comments

UPDATE: Download the presentation as a PowerPoint or PDF.

This past weekend, David Byrne visited Chicago to speak alongside Luann Hamilton, Jacky Grimshaw, and Randy Neufeld. Randy Neufeld served as the Executive Director of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, now the Active Transportation Alliance. He is now a board member of Active Trans and the director of the SRAM Cycling Fund.

At the “Cities, Bicycles and the Future of Getting Around: A Special Urban Sustainability Forum with David Byrne,” Randy gives Chicago 10 ideas to make bicycling great. What follows is my paraphrasing of the presentation.

“We need to make the streets more inviting to a broader spectrum.” 8 and 80. The criteria for urban cycling infrastructure should be whether it is suitable for 8 year olds and 80 year olds.

10 Ideas for Bicycling in Chicago from Steven Vance on Vimeo.

  1. Open Streets – “What if Bike The Drive were every weekend?”
  2. Slow Down – 30KPH (under 18 MPH) zone.
  3. Cycle Tracks – The basic bike lane has been widened, parked cars moved to the left, and a buffer has been painted.
  4. Bike Boulevards – Lightly traveleed streets without bike lanes to make it easier to take the side streets across town.
  5. Bike Parking – Chicago is the best with on-street bike racks. Need covered off-street bike parking. Bike parking starts at home. “There’s free public auto parking on the street in front of my house, why not free public bike parking on the street in front of my house?”
  6. New Public Space – Follow New York City’s example. Build a Parklet like in San Francisco.
  7. Wayfinding – Not impressed with Google Maps’ bicycling directions. Active Transportation Alliance Chicagoland Bike Map.
  8. Better Bikes – “In Chicago, one could live without a suspension fork, and fewer than 21 gears. For $370, you’re going to wish they included lights, fenders, a kickstand, and a rack to carry your beach bag. In civilized places, bikes come fully equipped.
  9. Public Bikes – “Maybe you don’t need your own bike.”
  10. Get Going! – Take action, get involved. Take something you’ve seen today and make it happen. Put fenders and a basket on your own bike, and go shopping! [I’m not sure if number 10 is an idea but really the conclusion to encourage people to further inspect ideas 1 through 9.]

Randy used, with my permission, several photos from my Flickr photostream. You can see those again now – perhaps you’ll want to use them in your presentation about bicycling and Chicago!

Bicycle trailer sharing

May 6, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Bicycle trailers can hold hundreds of pounds of goods, food, and furniture. However, high quality and durable trailers for bikes can be expensive (about $350) for one bicycle rider, especially if they plan to only use it a few times per year. A trailer sharing program could be the answer to distributing the high cost of purchasing and maintaining the trailers for sporadic use.

My friend Josh pulls a trailer with automated bike counting equipment.

West Town Bikes and the Loaded Bikes Collective are asking for your vote in the Pepsi Refresh Project. You’ve probably heard of it by now – when Pepsi advertises something, they really advertise something. It’s on the radio, television, and on every soda can and bottle. Visit their project page for more information, a budget breakdown, and to vote. (Loaded Bikes delivers for Community Supported Agriculture, farmers markets, and city gardens.)

In 2009, I created a proposal (really a shot in the dark) for a trailer sharing program modeled after ZipCar and I-GO. Read the full proposal after the break.

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That Lakefront Trail

April 1, 2010 / / 0 Comments

It’s not the “Chicago Bike Path.” It’s not the “Lakefront Path.” It’s not the “Chicago Riverwalk.”

Those are all names that have appeared on Google Maps at some point to describe the 18-mile multi-use path along Lake Michigan in the city limits.

It’s the Lakefront Trail. And it’s pretty great. Most of the time. South of Solidarity Drive.*

It looks like this:

Burnham Harbor. My point and shoot camera, a Fuji F50fd, was recently damaged and the lens cover will not fully retract. It casts a shadow over wide angle shots. When zoomed, like in the photo below, the shadow disappears.

And this:

Can you name all the buildings?

*The Lakefront Trail is extremely congested starting near Museum Campus (especially when there are a lot of walkers and tourists that day), and has pinch points at Monroe, Grand and Illinois, Oak Street Beach, North Avenue Beach, and Belmont (those are the ones I remember, I rarely ride on the Lakefront Trail because of the insanity). No matter how many drawbacks I list, you can’t beat an open and unobstructed view of the city or the lake. Open this photo to see how many people are using it.

Benefits of bike parking

February 2, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I’m working on my master’s project about bike parking distribution and equity in Chicago and while working on a section in the paper, I decided to get some help from readers. Many transportation projects are measured on predicted changes like trip travel time savings or trip cost savings (I give two examples below the photo).

My question is this: What are a bike parking installation’s measurable benefits to a traveler or a community?

Photo: Portland has installed 40 on-street bike parking “corrals” since 2004. What does a traveler or community gain from this bike rack installation? Photo by Kyle Gradinger.

To figure equity (fairness) for these project types, you measure these impacts for different groups (often high, medium, and low income), either in the alternatives analysis, or project selection phases. So, converting a lane on a highway to charge tolls for the lane’s users will have a certain benefit for many trips: a lower trip time. A new bus route may be convenient enough for some travelers to switch from driving to taking the bus, possibly reducing their trip cost.

The snow debate: Who should clear sidewalks?

December 23, 2009 / / 0 Comments

A couple of days ago (I think it was Friday night, December 18, 2009), a storm dumped several feet of snow in the northeast United States, covering New York City, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The storm was so eventful that Metro (Washington, D.C.) stored many of its trains in the subway tunnels to avoid getting them covered in heavy snow, and applied “heater tape” to the third rails to keep them from getting new ice after two passes from plows and deicing trains. [This information comes from the linked Metro press release on December 19, 2009.]

Now Streetsblog NYC is hosting the debate about snow removal from sidewalks. Why doesn’t anyone do it, and who should do it? Images of unplowed sidewalks and pedestrians walking in clean and clear streets bring up issues about priorities in street design and maintenance.

Many municipalities have ordinances requiring the property owner to remove snow from the sidewalk (Chicago even specifies a time frame in which the work must be completed; at my last apartment, I shoveled the snow from the sidewalk and porches for a deduction in rent). Many people report how these laws pass through the winter without enforcement.

My bike waits for me on unplowed sidewalk in front of my school. I live in Chicago, Illinois, not the east coast.

A plow removes snow from a bike lane in Copenhagen, Denmark. Is this something we can bring to our bike lanes and sidewalks in the United States?