Category: Urban Planning

Humboldt Park “do over”

January 27, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Read the story below and the final paragraph to fully understand this drawing.

If you, like Alderman Roberto Maldonado (26th Ward), received complaints about speeding traffic and difficulty crossing Humboldt Drive, how would you respond?

The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) responded by temporarily changing “the four-lane street into two travel lanes with a center lane used as a combination left-turn lane and pedestrian refuge area, using orange traffic barrels to keep moving cars out of the center lane.” (All quotes from Vote With Your Feet / Time Out Chicago, by John Greenfield.)

Narrowing the lane could reduce automobile speed and the refuge island should make it easier to cross the street, even if it has to be done in two movements. “After CDOT analyzes the effects on traffic speed and behavior, [CDOT spokesperson Brian] Steele says, the changes may become permanent next year.”

But bicyclists are not considered in this installation. That seems to be by design.

“He [Alderman Maldonado] told me that he has no intention of adding a bicycle lane or any other accouterments on that stretch because ‘the road is too dangerous for pedestrians,’” she says. Lottes recently posted on the local bike website thechainlink.org, asking members to lobby Maldonado for bike lanes on Humboldt. “To me the road seems too dangerous for pedestrians because there are no sidewalks, crosswalks or bike lanes.”

A local resident, Gin, asked me if I could draw up something for Humboldt Drive and I drew what you saw above. I based it on a bike lane design I saw in New York City: two-way, barrier protected (see photo below). The intersections between the bike lane and the other lanes will need special care – I don’t have any expertise there, but I know some people in Portland and New York City who do.

What else might you propose? Here’s a map of the park (centered on where I drew the bike lane), and a street view of the location.

The first thing I see in Amsterdam

January 25, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I got off the final train of a 4 hour trip from Wuppertal, Germany, to Amsterdam Centraal Station via Venlo and Eindhoven and the first thing I see is parking for about 7,000 bicycles. WOW!

7,000 is just the quantity at the front of the station. There’s additional parking in the rear along a major “bike highway” going east-west (on two defunct barges in the river IJ) and underground (guarded) parking as well. In all there “officially” 10,000 parking spaces for bicycles – and it’s not enough. During construction of the new north-south subway, bicycle parking and station access by bike will be reconfigured. Some people say that when the additional bike parking comes online, it will again be insufficient.

Since you read this blog, you know I have a passion for bicycle parking. Just like planning for automobile storage, bicycle storage requires similar attention and infrastructure.

I’ve uploaded more photos of bike parking in Europe (so far just 16 photos), including the fancy underground garage at Amsterdam Zuid Station, with its own escalator! For more sweet bicycle parking in Netherlands, check out the Fietsappel on Daniel Sparing’s blog, Railzone.nl.

Some disjointed thoughts about bike commuting rates and how we get them

January 21, 2011 / / 0 Comments
  1. In November 2010, I wrote that Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, have a higher percentage of workers (16 and older) commuting to work by bicycle.
  2. Yesterday, I updated an article about how the frequency of women in Chicago bicycling to work is decreasing.
  3. Today, I started updating the November Minnesota article to include the 2007-2009 3-year estimates from the American Community Survey (which shows that bicycling to work is growing faster in Minneapolis than Chicago). View the rudimentary spreadsheet. Bottom line: MPLS jumped from 3.55% bike mode share to 4.14% and Chicago only went from 1.04% to 1.13% (but again, only counting employed people!). Can we get some recession job statistics?
  4. Unemployment rate in Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI MSA is 6.5%; Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI MSA is 9.0%. See the table on Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But now I must pause and look at what I’m analyzing.

Someone pointed out in the comments on Chicago bicycling (and working) women that the sample size is low and the margin of error high meaning it’s hard to make accurate interpretations of the change in ridership from year to year. He suggested increasing the sample size.

Add this to the fact that the Census Bureau only collects data on trips to WORK and not everywhere else that people go daily. In this recession, fewer people are working. In fact, perhaps women lost their jobs more frequently than men. That could perhaps explain the drop in women bicycling to work. To increase the number of women bicycling to work, perhaps we just need to find more jobs for women. See points 3 and 4 above for evidence on the number of people who bicycle for transportation that we’re not counting.

After thinking these things over, my point is that gauging a city’s ridership based on Census Bureau home to work data is insufficient.

If these Phoenix bike riders aren’t going to work, they aren’t being counted.

To move from a bicycle subculture to a bicycle culture, we’ll need to know when we get there. We need a better picture on who is riding and for what purpose. CMAP rarely performs their household transportation survey (which gathers data on all trips on all modes and in many counties) and when they do, they don’t single out cities. In essence, Chicago doesn’t know where or why people are riding their bicycles (except for the limited and noisy information the Census or American Community Survey provides) – we have no good data!

Both New York City, New York, and Portland, Oregon, methodically perform bicycle counts annually. Both cities also count ridership on their bridges: Portland has at least 5 to count, NYC has over 10 (also called a screenline count). They can report how many people are riding bikes on the street, blind to their trip purpose and destination. It’s easy to note changes in ridership when you count all trips over work trips.

Environment and community – the latest Chicago mayoral forum

January 20, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Guess what. Rahm Emanuel didn’t show up. We all predicted that. He’s got his own style of campaigning and corporate Los Angeles fundraising – we’ll see where that gets him when no one knows why they should vote for him. Andy Shaw, an excellent moderator, explained how he called Rahm’s campaign office and basically was brushed off: “Thanks for telling us how to run our campaign” they said.

I brought my friend’s Apple iPad to the Marriott ballroom for the Community and Environment Mayoral Forum last night so I could “liveblog” the messages from the three candidates, Carol Mosely-Braun, Miguel Del Valle, and Gery Chico. But that didn’t happen because Marriott Magnificent didn’t provide “complimentary wifi” (as the staff member called it) to the attendees. I could have brought my laptop, but then you would have delayed updates and we couldn’t have that!

So instead I sent tweets to my 500+ followers on my dumb phone with 9 keys on its keyboard. Here are the 35 short messages about the forum, mostly unedited [edits/additions in brackets], in reverse order (last to first):

  • This was the best mayoral forum [I’ve been to] so far. (final tweet)
  • Braun: this election is about the future direction of the city and we need a city Council that is a real legislative body. [I think she was alluding how the city council has been a group of pushovers under the M. Daley administration]
  • Del Valle says we can’t achieve perfection but we have to continue reaching for it [that seems realistic]. Make neighborhood schools the anchor of the community. [He explains that he doesn’t want parents to have to struggle to decide if they should send their children to the school down the block, or the school across town. All schools should be good.]
  • Chico says running for mayor is the highlight of his life. “I want my grandson to be proud of Chicago.”
  • Chico wants to make a city where families want to stay.
  • Del Valle thinks the next mayor will be a one term mayor. It will be painful as the next mayor makes a lot of tough decisions. [I think he was really serious about this. If he believes it, then I think this says something about his rationale for becoming the next mayor.]
  • Braun: someone on Wall Street decided to make $10 billion the failure of Chicago city Council approving parking meter deal [this one was really hard to put into 140 characters – the way she spoke this message was much better than how I summarized it]
  • Chico looks better [in my eyes] with every new word he utters.
  • I like what Del Valle says but the way he talks needs to be refined.
  • Too many people are leaving the community and environmental forum and We’re talking about green jobs.
  • We need to educate the public on role and function of Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. Make water meters mandatory. [Del Valle]
  • Chico wants audit on water supply to ensure we have the cleanest. Water meters should be installed at every home and business to conserve.
  • Del Valle says he will liberate the 50 aldermen and demand open deliberation [open meaning that he would invite and encourage the public to come].
  • Del Valle says fast track park development to take the place of vacant lots and abandoned homes.
  • Chico agrees with Del Valle. Must talk to Springfield and Washington (filled with Chicagoans) more often.
  • Del Valle: Mayors need to go to Springfield more often. Gun control. Pensions. Transportation formula.
  • Braun says more bike lanes and pedestrian zones so people don’t have to compete with dangerous traffic.
  • What 3 priorities do you take to Springfield? Braun: address school & transit funding formulas. income tax. state not paying for teacher pensions.
  • Del Valle says if the candidates’ proposals are so good, why didn’t we do it before?
  • Chico says get rid of Ward based recycling and switch to grid. [Note: Recycling is based on which Ward you live in, but pickup within the connected Wards is based on a grid.]
  • Chico on downtown: In the summer you run into the flip flop crowd. 20 years ago you’d have seen tumbleweeds.
  • Andy Shaw is a good moderator. Environmental forum.
  • Braun says shut down the plants. Del Valle says City Council needs to vote on Clean Power Ordinance [which includes cleaning up or shutting down]. Chico says clean up or close down. [My favorite part of the forum. I’ve lived in their polluting domain for four years, in Pilsen and Bridgeport.]
  • Fisk and Crawford plants: What steps would you take to clean them up? This is my question of the year as I’ve lived near there for 4 years.
  • Chico talking about his rep as school board president. Oversaw building new schools and rising test scores.
  • Chico also telling us how much of a Chicagoan he is. Talking about Neighborhoods Alive, living on South Michigan Avenue.
  • To be a world class city, we need world class neighborhoods. Can’t happen until we do away with food deserts. -Del Valle
  • Del Valle says all candidates tonight will have same answers. But Del Valle talking about how true a Chicagoan he is.
  • Del Valle ribs Rahm for not showing up at forums. Forums are a very good way to meet Chicagoans.
  • Braun says the earth is “all of our mother”
  • Braun talking about her environmental chops as state legislator and senator.
  • Andy Shaw warns of tough, green questions ahead. At the environmental forum.
  • Tomorrow will be 4th forum of Andy Shaw that Rahm Emanuel will miss.
  • Brendan Reilly gives “a big downtown” welcome to Braun, Del Valle, Chico. (first tweet)

I tried to give equal attention to all candidates, but there’s obvious bias in all of the tweets because of my limited space to write and also because I only tweeted what I thought would be interesting to readers (“sound bytes,” I guess).

Lastly: Both Mosely-Braun and Del Valle want to build more bike lanes and “pedestrian zones” (not sure what they meant by this) to ensure these users’ safety. Awesome! Del Valle even went so far as to say that he would like to see bike lanes on Grand Avenue at Milwaukee Avenue (an intersection he sees often and alluded to wanting to improve it). This is in addition to him bringing up how the parking meter deal sucks for Chicago because it removes the City’s ability to control its own streets.

Wildly different priorities

January 17, 2011 / / 0 Comments

The people of the Netherlands show how they place priority on a multitude of transportation modes on every block.

Take for example this Hard Rock Cafe in Amsterdam, a restaurant known around the world – there’s always one in each country’s largest cities.

The only way to arrive is by foot or by bicycle! There’s no car drop off or parking lot. The rear of the restaurant has patio seating along the canal so it might even be possible to dock your boat here!