Month: June 2016

It’s been an awful two weeks for bike collisions in northeast Illinois. On Tuesday of last week, a 29-year-old woman was struck and injured on her bicycle at Jackson and Homan, by a police officer who witnesses say ran a red light without using lights or sirens. That Wednesday bike courier Blaine Klingenberg was fatally struck by a tour bus driver at Oak and Michigan, the first Chicago bike fatality of 2016

This week I'm joined by cartographer Gretchen Peterson to talk about mapmaking and her new book, City Maps: A Coloring Book for Adults. We discuss why she made the book and why she chose the 40 city maps she included in it.

There aren't too many places in the United States like Boston -- truly walkable cities with good transit. And it didn't happen by accident.

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New Belgium Brewing Company’s Tour de Fat, an annual celebration of bike culture and the most important fundraiser for West Town Bikes, will mark its ninth year in Chicago next month. The festival takes place on Saturday, July 9 in Palmer Square Park, 2200 North Kedzie, in the east side of the park instead of its usual spot on the west side of the green space. “It looks like it will be bigger and better than ever,” says Alex Wilson, director of the Humboldt Park-based bicycle education center.

Streetsblog's "Sorriest Bus Stop in America" contest is back by popular demand.

U.S. DOT announced the winner of its $50 million "Smart City" grant yesterday, and Columbus, Ohio, bested finalists San Francisco, Portland, Austin, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Denver for the prize. Many other cities had applied for this federal funding to demonstrate how new technologies can improve urban streets and transportation.

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Last week, the Chicago Department of Transportation revealed its proposal to connect riverfront paths, reduce cut through traffic, and make it safer to walk and bike along streets in the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood. CDOT developed the plan for a "neighborhood greenway" between Horner Park and Ronan Park along the north branch of the Chicago River over the past two years, at the request of 33rd Ward Alder Deb Mell, and the Transportation Action Committee she started.