Recently WBEZ, our city’s National Public Radio affiliate station, invited me to participate in a discussion of the state of Chicago bicycling on The Barbershop Show, a current affairs program that’s partly taped at Carter’s Barbershop in North Lawndale (why is why you can hear electric clippings running in the background at times). The episode covers several different aspects of local cycling with a focus on the question of whether Chicago actually deserved to be ranked the best city for biking in the U.S. this year by Bicycling Magazine. Click on the graph above to listen to the episode. In case you’re short on time, here are some of the highlights:

31:10: Introduction of the topic by host Richard Steele
33:55 Chicago Ghost Bikes‘ Kristen Green discusses the significance of the memorials
35:00 I talk about why side guards should be required for trucks
36:25 How local trucking lobbyists killed legislation to require convex safety mirrors
37:00 A delivery cyclist tells how an officer refused to fill out a crash report after he was struck
39:00 Steele and reporter Emma Farley discuss the problem of antagonism towards cyclists
40:47 Steele: “Chicago as the number one [biking] city of 2016… Really?”
41:45 Farley talks about the city’s network of downtown protected bike lanes
42:30 Steele confesses that he parks in a PBL when he picks up his granddaughter from school
45:25 How disused land and tracks were turned into Big Marsh and The 606

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