Streetsblog Chicago

Sergeant Joe Giambrone speaks with a cyclist. Photo by John Greenfield.

Last week while pedaling downtown on Milwaukee, I came across Chicago Department of Transportation Bicycling Ambassadors and 14^th District police officers doing safety outreach to people on bikes and people in cars. The ambassadors were handing flyers to motorists and cyclists reminding them not to use phones while driving and to obey traffic signals while biking. The police were flagging down adult cyclists who rode on the sidewalk or who ran red lights and giving them seemingly polite warnings that what they did was illegal.

Carlin Thomas, CDOT’s enforcement coordinator, said the response from people in cars had been mostly positive. “Most motorists are rolling down their windows at first wave, and often we’re finding that motorists are also cyclists,” she said. “So sometimes they don’t even want our free information. They’re like, ‘I’m a cyclist too. I don’t talk on my cell phone [while driving].’ Every now and then we’ll get a driver who’ll quietly put down their phone and take a flyer and apologize.”

I asked Thomas if this enforcement event was related to the recently proposed Bike Safety Ordinance 2013, which would raise fees for traffic violations by bicyclists from $25 to $50-200, as well as double the fine for motorists who open car doors on cyclists to $1,000. “We’ve been doing enforcement work for the past four years,” she said. “So we’re continuing to [raise awareness of] the most dangerous behaviors out on the roadway… The ordinance proposal certainly complements what we’re doing.”

Carlin Thomas, left, offers a driver tips for safely sharing the road with bikes. Photo by John Greenfield.

“The officers here are patrolling with a bike ambassador and pointing out people’s behavior that may increase the likelihood of a [crash] without having to write a ticket,” said Sergeant Joe Giambrone. “You see all the white ‘ghost bikes’ that are littering the neighborhood?” Giambrone said. “That’s because of the prevalence of all these motor vehicle-bicycle [crashes]. I can’t reach and pluck the [cyclist] out of harm’s way, but by our positive enforcement events we can hopefully raise the awareness of both the motorist and the cyclist to help prevent that.”

Later this month, First Ward Alderman Joe Moreno and 32rd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack are sponsoring outreach events where people cycling at night without lights will be stopped by the police, then approached by ambassadors who will offer to install free lights on their bikes so they can avoid tickets. “That’s a very positive interaction,” Giambrone said. “Today tends to be a ‘slap and tickle’ – some people who don’t want to hear our advice are still going to ride badly,” he added.

I’ve heard grumbling from cyclists about the enforcement events in the past so, for a different perspective, I posted on The Chainlink, a local bike social networking website with over 8,500 members, asking whether people feel the events are helpful for encouraging safe behavior. Out of the dozen or so folks who responded, opinions on the usefulness of the stings ran about fifty-fifty.

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Workers from Eli Lilly and Co. ride the Cultural Trail on company bikes. Photo by Jack Cebe.

Guest author Jack Cebe is a planner and designer with Alta Planning + Design in Chicago, a firm dedicated to creating active communities where bicycling and walking are safe, healthy, fun, and normal daily activities.

Last week, I traveled to Indianapolis to attend the National Association of City Transportation Officialsseventh Cities for Cycling Roadshow. The Roadshow gathers leaders in bicycling transportation from the country’s top bicycle-friendly cities to provide technical assistance for cities that have shown a dedication to improving cycling as a transportation option. It includes presentations and discussions with local political leaders, engineers, planners and advocates; and is intended to both offer encouragement and share knowledge with citizens and officials.

The two-day workshop was led by four nationally recognized experts in the design, planning, and advancement of livable communities: David Vega-Barachowitz, sustainable initiatives program manager with NACTO; Nicole Freedman, director of bicycle programs with the city of Boston; Robert Burchfield, city traffic engineer with the Portland Bureau of Transportation; and Mike Amsden, project manager with The Chicago Department of Transportation. Jamison Hutchins, Indianapolis bicycle coordinator, was the head organizer of the event.

On Thursday, the workshop began with a presentation to city government and transportation leaders. Indianapolis has implemented several world-class bicycle facilities and amenities such as the Cultural Trail separated bike lane network, Indy Bike Hub Bike parking centers, an extensive greenway network, and an upcoming bike-share system. The main message was that Indianapolis had already accomplished much of the hard work in striving to become a more bicycle-friendly city; now it’s time to go after the “low-hanging fruit” projects that will make the network more complete and encourage more people to ride.

An Indy Bike Hub parking center. Photo by John Greenfield.

Roadshow leaders identified that this is a pivotal moment for increasing biking in Indianapolis. Under Mayor Greg Ballard the city currently has strong leadership that understands the importance of cycling. While future administrations may not be as supportive of active transportation as current leaders, roadshow leaders offered encouragement by pointing out that it’s much easier to prevent transportation progress than to undo it, and if the programs you initiate now are successful, then subsequent leaders will be supportive of them.

Later that day, the Cities for Cycling Roadshow biked to the Indianapolis Department of Public Works for an afternoon workshop. The purpose of this seminar was to educate department planners and engineers on best practices for bicycle facility design, with a focus on advanced facilities and concepts such as cycle tracks, neighborhood greenways (also known as bike boulevards), intersection markings, and bike signalization. The Roadshow was met by a very welcoming and attentive audience. Around 40 staff members were in attendance, many who were asking questions and taking notes throughout the presentations. Lori Miser, director of IDPW and Andy Lutz, deputy director, emphasized throughout the workshop that bicycling accommodation is a priority for the department.

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Waiting for the Brown Line at the Belmont stop. Photo by John Greenfield.

[This article also ran in Checkerboard City, John Greenfield's weekly transportation column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets in print on Wednesday evenings.]

Two Saturdays ago on National Train Day, my transit-racing brother-in-arms Danny Resner and I tried to write a new chapter in the saga of competitive CTA riding, AKA the ‘L’ Challenge. The rules are simple: you must stop at and/or depart from every CTA station by train, although it’s not necessary to ride every inch of track, and you can only travel by ‘L’, bus or shoe leather.

Adham Fisher, right, a Leicester, England, native and 'L' Challenge record holder for 143 stations, with CTA President Forrest Claypool at the 100th anniversary party for the Linden stop, shortly before Fisher beat Danny Resner and John Greenfield in a head-to-head transit race. Photo by Greenfield.

Several people, including Danny and me, have worn the CTA racing crown at various times. In October, ad men Chris Aubin and Garrett Sorrels set the current record for 145 stations: 9:12:39. We hoped to snag the title before the five-month shutdown of the south Red Line for a $425 million track rehab and station enhancement project, which started on Sunday. Here’s how our day went down:

10am We begin our journey in Wilmette at the Purple Line’s Linden station, a stone’s throw from the Bahá’í temple. Last week a seven-month, $2 million slow-zone-elimination project started on the line north of Howard and we see yellow construction vehicles parked along the track as we roll south. Just before we reach Howard to transfer to the Yellow Line there’s an excruciating twenty-minute delay.

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No one wins with the current arrangement on Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park, where traffic backs up every weekday. This line extended from Damen Avenue to Thomas Street, about 1 mile.

When the Chicago Department of Transportation proposed a redesign of Milwaukee Avenue that will improve safety for cycling, a few merchants groused about the loss of parking directly in front of their stores. Change can be scary, but this fear is misplaced. A safer street is a more inviting street, and CDOT could actually implement much more dramatic transformations that would still benefit the bottom line of local businesses.

Take the stretch of Milwaukee in Wicker Park. This is one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in Chicago, but it has a congestion problem. And all that car traffic on neighborhood streets decreases the quality of life for people who live there, people who visit, and people who travel through.

If you approach this problem the conventional way, you might eliminate parking to make room for more travel lanes. But that would also make the street less pleasant for walking, and then it wouldn’t be such a vibrant place. The congestion might be alleviated, but you would also eliminate some of the reasons people came in the first place.

There’s another way to approach the problem: Giving priority to the most efficient modes of transportation, which would address both the need for people to travel and the need to create a desirable urban environment. More people will be able get to and through the place, even as the pedestrian environment improves thanks to the decline in car traffic.

This more rational option is paying dividends for American cities. Reallocating urban street space from cars to pedestrians, bikes, and transit has shown time and time again to improve the efficiency of the street and enhance retail performance. A recent analysis of sales receipts and real estate data in New York City found that streets where traffic lanes and parking had been re-purposed for bus lanes, bike lanes, and pedestrian space performed better economically, overall, than streets that saw no changes. San Francisco recently eliminated left turns and increased enforcement on its transit-only lanes on Church Street: travel times dropped, reliability increased. These changes are good for business in part because they make the street more accessible to pedestrians and cyclists, who tend to make more frequent trips to retailers than car drivers.

So what could be done on Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park? Well, one solution would be to make it a street only for transit, biking, and walking. Taxis could also be allowed to take home those who can’t take themselves home.

The resulting roadway would look something like this section of Copenhagen’s Nørrebrogade, the main drag of the Nørrebro district (think of it as the Wicker Park of the Danish capital):

This block of Nørrebrogade is for buses, bikes, and pedestrians only.

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Revolution Brewing owner Josh Deth, left; employee Bert Velilla is drilling. Photo by John Greenfield.

Lovers of sustainable transportation and beer rejoice! As I type this, on-street bike racks are being bolted into the asphalt in front of Revolution Brewing, 2323 North Milwaukee in Logan Square. This will be Chicago’s fifth on-street bike parking corral, replacing car parking spaces with bike racks. I talked with owner Josh Deth (an old friend of mine) about the benefits of the corral for his businesses and the community, and the sometimes-challenging process of navigating the city’s bureaucracy for permits.

John Greenfield: Congratulations on finally getting your on-street bike parking corral installed. You’ve been trying to get this installed for several weeks now. What happened that you were finally able to do it?

Josh Deth: Well, it’s a partnership with the city of Chicago’s bike program and the First Ward office. Alderman Joe Moreno was really helpful. He helped get the two parking spaces moved elsewhere in the ward [since the contract with parking concessionaire Chicago Parking Meters requires the city to compensate the company for any lost meter revenue.] We had to move two parking spots – it’s a 40-foot-long bike corral, the biggest one in the city. It kind of took a while. We had to get a right-of-way permit, we had to do a use agreement with the Department of Law, we had to get insurance certificates, we had to get the design reviewed and approved, order the racks, that kind of stuff. So there were a lot of little steps involved.

JG: What was the tipping point that allowed you to move forward with installation?

JD: We got the right-of-way permit yesterday from CDOT, we got the use agreement from the law department last week, and those were the final steps.

That evening, the RevBrew racks were already getting plenty of use. Photo by Steven Vance.

JG: Are you going to be adding planters?

JD: No. That’s a little bit of a sore subject. There is no city standard planter. This is like the city’s standard bike corral manufactured by Saris up in Madison, Wisconsin. In order to do planters there was a requirement to get an architect of record to make architectural drawings. That was going to cost more than the bike racks themselves. Plus, there was the cost of the planters themselves being fabricated. We ran into a lot of bureaucratic hurdles.

JG: So what do you think the corral is going to do for your business?

JD: It’s going to be great. You know, we had a bike crash occur today, just down the road a bit on Milwaukee. It was very sad. I think the woman’s going to be OK. But while we were here installing the racks there has been an endless stream of bikes. People have been coming by and saying, “Awesome,” “Congratulations,” and “That’s so cool.”

So, obviously, it’s going to allow more people to comfortably park their bikes to come into Revolution, to go to Threads Etc. [a neighboring consignment shop]. Cole [Bryson, owner of nearby Cole’s bar] came by and checked it out – he thought it was really cool. The Threads guys came by and thought it was really cool.

It’s going to encourage people to shop on the strip. There is something like two restaurants, a bar and a distillery coming in at the end of the block here, so there’s going to be a lot more activity around here. We need make room for them to be able to bike here. We’re going to have room for 20 bikes where there were two parking spots. So it’s not just for Revolution, it’s for all the neighboring businesses.

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Condo board president David Lewis indicates the height and proximity of a ramp.

The residents of 400 S Green Street, the building where the Illinois Department of Transportation plans to build a new highway ramp just a few feet away, have begun a petition to rally neighbors in opposition to the project.

The proposed flyover is part of IDOT’s $400 million Circle Interchange expansion, a project that the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s myriad committees allowed onto the funding list for the GO TO 2040 regional plan, even though it conflicts with the plan’s commitments to transit, livability, and sustainability.

IDOT’s “preferred alternative” for the project, known as Alternative 7.1C, calls for building a highway ramp next to 400 S Green, while a different variation, which IDOT rejected in mysterious fashion, would avoid building the new ramp.

Asserting that “the inclusion of the flyovers in an urban environment divides communities, creates unsafe viaducts, and increases noise and pollution,” the petition lists the many reasons people tend to not want flyovers or highway ramps outside their windows. For example:

Overpass structures create a darker and dirtier environment. Threatening to pedestrians. This ramp will also be located outside the Halsted Street Blue Line station where people need to wait for buses and enter/exit the station.

Some signers are leaving comments about how Alternative 7.1C would affect Chicagoans:

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A South Shore Line car with high and low level boarding doors. Photo: David Wilson.

Two weeks ago, at a friend’s suggestion, I started a petition to lobby the South Shore Line to allow bicycles on trains, which currently has 125 signers. Our motivation was mostly selfish: We want to be able to travel to the Dunes National Lakeshore and other places in northwest Indiana with our bikes. So I reached out to Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, the agency that operates the South Shore Line. Yesterday afternoon, when I called John Parsons, NICTD’s planning and marketing director, he said he was expecting me since he had already received many emails about bikes on trains (the petition website automatically sends them).

Note: Passengers may bring bikes if inside luggage and can fit in the luggage rack. 

Parsons said he appreciated the petition emails because they told him why people want to take their bicycles on the South Shore Line. Many people, like me, want to visit the Dunes, while others want to be able to visit family in South Bend without having to be driven to and from the station. People left comments about how bicycles can fill the “last mile” gap to your final destination – that leg of the trip where there’s often no transit service – and that allowing bicycles on trains could increase ridership.

The signatures weren’t all from Chicagoans. Bruce Spitzer from South Bend wrote, “This is South Bend’s ‘direct connection’ to Chicago! Yet we bicyclists cannot enjoy easily taking our bikes to Chicago. We’d love to bike in Chicago via the South Shore!” Russ Perdiu from Tippecanoe, IN, said, “With gas pricing sky high and traffic a total disaster no matter what city you are in it is important to allow access to alternative travel options.”

So why can’t bikes go on South Shore Line trains? Parsons said the limitations are pretty straightforward. A lot of the route’s 19 stations have low-level boarding that requires people to enter trains via narrow stairs and doorways at the end of the cars. “You literally cannot bring a bike up these stairwells,” he explained. The agency is converting more stations to high-level boarding in order to use the cars’ middle doors, which would improve access for people with disabilities.

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Earlier this week, the people at Walk Score updated its rankings of America’s most bikeable cities, and Chicago came in at number 10. In addition, they released a city-by-city list of the most bikeable neighborhoods.

You can see Chicago’s top bikeable neighborhoods as rated by Walk Score in the map above. (Eight “neighborhoods” listed in the WalkScore spreadsheet didn’t have matching areas in the neighborhood map data from Chicago and are therefore not shown on the map.) Here’s their ranking of the top ten Chicago neighborhoods for biking:

1. East Ukrainian Village: 89.3
2. Ukrainian Village: 87
3. Wicker Park: 86.8
4. Illinois Medical District: 86.5
5. Noble Square: 86.1
6. East Pilsen: 85.9
7. Margate Park: 84.2
8. West Loop Gate: 84
9. Sheridan Park: 83.7
10. Fulton River District: 83.4

Anything on the list surprise you? I think not having Logan Square is the big upset, coming in at number 58, but it only has bike lanes on Palmer and Milwaukee for less than 1.5 miles! I wouldn’t have picked up on Illinois Medical District having a high BikeScore. When I re-read the factors Walk Score considers, it was still a head-scratcher:

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Chicago/Ogden/Milwaukee, one of the city's worst intersections for bicycle crashes, slated for improvements as part of the Milwaukee protected bike lane project. Photo by John Greenfield

[This article also ran in Checkerboard City, John Greenfield's weekly column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets on Wednesday evenings.]

Last summer when I visited Copenhagen, I hung out with with Mikael Colville-Andersen, one of the world’s most influential and controversial bicycle advocates, in his lush back yard while his kids practiced soccer and picked flowers. Colville-Andersen heads the consulting firm Copenhagenize, advising politicians, planners and advocates on ways to copy the success of the bike-friendly Danish capital, but he’s probably better known for his wildly popular photo blog, Copenhagen Cycle Chic.

Among the many topics we discussed was his attitude toward bike helmets. He thinks they’re totally unnecessary for urban commuting, and he believes that promoting helmet use is actually counterproductive to making cycling safer. In northern European bicycle meccas like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, more than a third of all trips are made by bike, almost nobody wears a helmet, and yet injury rates are much lower than in the United States, where lots of people wear helmets.

One reason crashes are relatively rare in these cities is the safety-in-numbers factor. There are so many cyclists in these places that drivers are always looking out for them, and wouldn’t dream of making a right turn or opening a car door without first checking that the coast is clear. And part of the reason there are so many people on bikes is because cycling feels so safe that strapping a Styrofoam and plastic shell on your head really does seem superfluous.

Mikael Colville-Andersen with his kids Felix and Lulu. Photo by John Greenfield.

Colville-Andersen doesn’t have a problem with folks choosing to wear helmets if it makes them feel safer. But he argues that, in the long run, cycling with no helmet is a lot better for your health than not biking at all. “In Europe … we want to get more people onto bikes,” he says. “You really sense that in America the general focus is getting people into helmets.”

It’s easy for Colville-Andersen to say that helmets are unnecessary when he lives in a pedaler’s paradise. Copenhagen cyclists never have to share the road with high-speed traffic. Virtually all major streets have raised bicycle lanes, elevated a few inches above the roadway, and neighborhood streets are designed so that cars must travel at a mellow speed.

Things are different here in Chicago and other North American cities where biking is relatively rare and fast, reckless, distracted and/or drunk driving is common. Ask Dustin Valenta, who was doored by one motorist in Wicker Park last February, then run over by a second who fled the scene. Miraculously, he survived, but he suffered a cracked skull and vertebrae, broken shoulder blades and pelvis, twenty-three fractured ribs and a punctured lung.

Or talk to Justin Carver, who’s making an amazing recovery from serious brain damage, after being “left-hooked” in Berwyn last December by a teenage driver who tested positive for marijuana. Their cases are a sobering reminder that even if you’re doing everything right on a bike, you could be the victim of someone else’s dangerous behavior, suggesting that it’s a good idea to wear a helmet while biking Chicago-area streets.

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Voting in the 5th Ward Participatory Budgeting election. Photo courtesy of PB Chicago.

The results of last week’s participatory budgeting elections show that, when you give them a chance, Chicago residents are happy to support projects that make our streets safer, more efficient and more vibrant. The 5th, 45th, 46th and 49th wards took part in the PB process, which allows citizens to propose ideas for each district’s $1.3 million in discretionary “menu” money and then vote on the projects that make it on the final ballot. While aldermen traditionally decide how menu money is used, and normally opt for basic street, sidewalk and lighting improvements, these results mean several innovative walking, biking, transit and public space initiatives will debut in the near future.

A whopping 1,400 participants cast ballots in the Far North Side’s 49th Ward, where Alderman Joe Moore first pioneered the process in 2010. “The participatory budgeting elections have exceeded even my wildest dreams,” said Moore in a statement. ”They are more than elections.  They are community celebrations and an affirmation that people will participate in the civic affairs of their community if given real power to make real decisions.”

His constituents voted to spend $30,000 on a pedestrian safety engineering study on Sheridan, which could lead to improvements like curb extensions to shorten crossing distances, and changes to stoplight and walk signal timing. They also voted to use $75,000 to install shared-lane markings for bikes on Clark from Howard to Albion. Other proposals that won funding included new sidewalks, the restoration of cobblestones on Glennwood, and cherry blossom trees and a new water fountain at Touhy Park.

In Leslie Hairston’s 5th Ward, on the south lakefront, the transportation committee for the PB process proposed 23 different projects, including many nontraditional ideas for promoting biking and transit use. However, unlike the other three aldermen, Hairston decided to designate these as “service requests” that should instead be funded by city departments, the CTA or the park district. The alderman has asked members of the committee to follow up with the relevant agencies to make sure these projects are completed, with the understanding that she has prioritized them, although she declined to fund them. However, street, sidewalk and lighting repairs, which can also be paid for by city agencies, were left on the PB ballot.

Perhaps not coincidentally, turnout in the 5th Ward PB election was relatively low, with only about 100 voters. “As word spreads, we look forward to more people taking part in next year’s Participatory Budgeting process,” said 5th Ward Chief of Staff Kimberl Webb in a statement. The winning three projects are an urban garden, street lamp improvements, and new lighting in Metra viaducts.

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