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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7800 block of West Irving Park Road.

On Tuesday, May 14, around 9:10 pm, 83-year-old Leonard Ratajczyk was bicycling west on the 7800 block of West Irving Park Road in the Irving Woods neighborhood when the driver of a westbound Chevy Malibu struck and killed him, according to Police News Affairs Officer John Mirabella. Ratajczyk lived on the 3900 block of North Pacific Avenue, a few blocks west of the crash site, so it’s likely he was on his way home.

The cyclist was taken to Lutheran General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:51 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. According to his obituary, Ratajczyk, who had five sisters and brothers, leaves behind many fond nieces and nephews.

The driver was identified as Salvador Villagomez, 59, from the 4800 block of South Keeler, according to Mirabella. Villagomez was cited for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident. The crash took place on a segment of Irving Park between two cemeteries, part of a one-mile stretch between Cumberland Avenue and Oriole Avenue with no stoplights or major cross streets, which encourages speeding.

Fatality Tracker: 2013 Chicago pedestrian and bicyclist deaths

Pedestrian: 8 (7 were from hit-and-run crashes, 2 in truck crashes)
Bicyclist: 1

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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Before. Photo: Justin Haugens.

The Trattoria No. 10 restaurant at 10 N Dearborn Street installed their own “stop for pedestrians” signs (taped to bricks) on Tuesday in the middle of the two-way Dearborn bike lane. The Chicago Department of Transportation received notification via Twitter, to which they responded:

@justinhaugens Those signs should not be placed in the bike lane. We sent an inspector out, and the signs were removed. #bikechi

— CDOT (@ChicagoDOT) May 15, 2013

Trattoria made a quick adjustment and now the signs are placed on the outside of the bike lane, one on the sidewalk and one in a hashed area that the restaurant’s valet operator uses to load vehicles. Michelle Stenzel pointed out on The Chainlink that loading in this area is dangerous because it gets in the way of people’s sightlines: “there is an alley right there, and drivers of turning vehicles can’t see the bicyclists (and vice versa).”

This is the first warm weather period since the bike lane opened in December, and bike traffic is growing while the sidewalks become busier. When I was riding on Tuesday and waiting for the bike-only signal at Randolph, I turned my head to notice five people queueing behind me. While it’s important for cyclists to stay aware of people on foot and yield to pedestrians, these signs added unnecessary confusion.

Restaurant owner Dan Rosenthal told Streetsblog that he recognizes it was a mistake to put the signs in the bike lane, saying “our chef, who bikes, told us that’s dangerous. We put them on the sides to eliminate that hazard.” Rosenthal said they placed the signs there because “there are a lot of unsuspecting pedestrians that cross here, we want everyone to be safe.” He has sent a letter to Alderman Brendan Reilly asking for something to be done. “If the city would help correct this hazardous condition, it would be better for the bikers and better for my guests,” he said.

After. Photo: Justin Haugens

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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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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Final CDOT design for Berteau between Ashland and Greenview.

It’s been a long time in the making, but it looks like the Berteau Neighborhood Greenway, albeit a somewhat watered-down version, will be debuting this summer. On Friday 47th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar announced that in June the Chicago Department of Transportation will begin construction of the greenway, a traffic-calmed, bike-priority street, known elsewhere as a “bike boulevard,” on a one-mile stretch between Lincoln and Clark. The work will start immediately after the city’s water department replaces a 100-year-old water main on Berteau between Ravenswood and Ashland.

The $120,000 bike project, bankrolled by the alderman’s discretionary “menu” funds, will likely be ready to ride by the end of the summer, according Pawar’s assistant Bill Higgins. “We’re really happy with the final design,” Higgins said. “It’s hard to make everyone happy but we think it will work out well in the end.” Check out CDOT’s design drawings here.

Pawar discusses plans for the greenway at a community meeting last August. Photo by Steven Gross.

In other cities bike boulevards are residential streets where speeding and cut-through traffic are discouraged through the use of traffic calming devices and/or traffic diverters – bump-outs, cul-de-sacs and other structures which prevent cars from driving down the entire length of the street or making certain turns. Meanwhile, contraflow bicycle lanes allow bikes to travel in both directions on one-way sections, and the diverters have cutouts that permit cyclists to continue unimpeded. CDOT originally proposed included diverters in the Berteau Greenway design, as well as a chicane, a slalom routes designed to slow drivers down. However, after residents at community meetings last year kvetched about having to change their driving habits, these ideas were scrapped.

Arguably the final product is not really a bike boulevard, since westbound motorists will still be able to drive the whole stretch, and it won’t be an “8-to-80″ bike facility because cyclists may be exposed to the occasional speeder. However, the features that made the cut will still be a big improvement over existing conditions on Berteau. Sections of contraflow bike lane, including a dedicated bike signal at Damen, will allow eastbound cyclists to safely travel from Lincoln to Clark. Green paint at conflict points and shared lane markings on the two-way sections will remind drivers to watch out for cyclists.

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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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