PathPath
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Newsletter
    Follow Us:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Streetsblog Logo
    • HOME
    • USA
    • NYC
    • MASS
    • LA
    • CHI
    • SF
    • CAL
    • STREETFILMS
    • DONATE
Streetsblog Chicago Logo
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Newsletter
    Follow Us:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Michael Podgers

Recent Posts

An aerial view of DuSable Lake Shore Drive, looking south from Diversey Avenue towards the Loop. Photo: Steven Vance

The NDLSD planning process is an opportunity to create a better future. Will IDOT do so?

By Michael Podgers | Apr 19, 2022 | No Comments
"We’re really at a crucial point in the history of humanity when we can make a real bold decision to have a better future. We should seize the moment.”
The boarded up entrance to the Buena Avenue underpass, next to the Chicago Peace Garden and the sculpture "Peace and Justice," a monument  to Daisaku Ikeda, founder of the Japanese Buddhist movement Soka Gakkai. Photo: John Greenfield

Closed underpasses, and opening minds about a radical redesign of DuSable LSD

By Michael Podgers | Mar 2, 2022 | No Comments
Impassible underpasses aren't just inconvenient. They also highlight the inconvenient truth that our addiction to cars is contributing to the existential threat of climate change.
A sidewalk-clearing plow in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Photo: Wikipedia

The case for municipal sidewalk snow clearance in Chicago

By Michael Podgers | Oct 20, 2021 | No Comments
Better Streets organizer and local planner, Michael Podgers, makes the case for municipal sidewalk clearance in Chicago.
There are ways to cope with the parking deal, like when new diagonal spaces were created on side streets to allow for the construction of protected bike lanes on Milwaukee Avenue in River West. But we shouldn't have to. Image: Google Maps

It’s time for Chicago to rid itself of the parasitic parking meter contract

By Michael Podgers | Sep 1, 2021 | No Comments
While it's possible to cope with the horrible parking deal through design and policy, we really need to abolish it altogether.
The city-owned parking lot at 4050 N. LaPorte Ave. currently sees little use. Image: Google Street View

Here’s why Chicago needs an office of parking management

By Michael Podgers | Aug 9, 2021 | No Comments
If we really want to see the rapid development of bus lanes, or a protected bike lane network, or wider sidewalks, or pedestrian plazas, then we must also understand parking needs and manage parking more intelligently.
San Francisco's Embarcadero was formerly occupied by a double-decker highway, but converted to a boulevard after the highway was damaged by an earthquake. Author Michael Podgers argues that this example suggests eight-lane DuSable Drive could be converted to a surface boulevard with four travel lanes with no negative effects on mobility.

Bus lanes aren’t enough: We must transform DuSable Drive into a multimodal boulevard

By Michael Podgers | Jul 7, 2021 | No Comments
We need to reclaim our lakefront and turn it into the truly spectacular green space we deserve. We need to remove the highway through our parks.
Halted Street in Boystown. Image: Google Street View

The Boystown Parking Ban Raises Issues of Race and Class

By Michael Podgers | Feb 2, 2018 | 19 Comments
Banning cars from the LGBTQ nightlife strip is fine. Discouraging people of color and lower-income residents from hanging out in the neighborhood is not.
Photo: Michael Podgers

Far Northwest Siders Brainstorm Ideas to Improve Bike Access

By Michael Podgers | Oct 31, 2017 | 2 Comments
Residents met with Active Trans staff to discuss ideas to improve pedestrian, cycling, and transit conditions on the Far Northwest Side.
Rendering of a theoretical post-flyover construction TOD building. Image: CTA
This post is supported by

CTA Introduces Redevelopment Plan for Belmont Flyover Site

By Michael Podgers | Oct 24, 2017 | 5 Comments
More than three dozen residents showed up for the hearing at the Center on Halsted.
The current eastern terminus of the Green Line in Woodlawn. [Editor's note: Daley's Restaurant, visible in the center of the photo, is highly recommended.] Photo: Michael Podgers

Petition to Extend Green Line to Obama Center Has Hundreds of Signatures. What’s Next?

By Michael Podgers | Jul 26, 2017 | 14 Comments
Now that they've got support from residents, the campaigners want to get the Obama Foundation, Mayor Emanuel, and the CTA onboard with the proposal.

Some Skepticism, Lots of Support for Funding Red Line Work With Transit TIF

By Michael Podgers | Sep 15, 2016 | 9 Comments
At a public meeting Tuesday night, Department of Planning and Development and Chicago Transit Authority officials outlined plans for a new transit TIF district along the North Side Mainline ‘L’, which carries the Red and Purple lines. The proposed TIF (tax-increment finance district) would generate funds to help pay for the Red-Purple Modernization project. At […]

Could Longer Rental Times Help Divvy Appeal to More Chicagoans?

By Michael Podgers | Nov 23, 2015 | 43 Comments
While visiting Vienna, Austria, I gave their CityBike Wien bike-share system a spin and found it has a couple of advantages over Chicago’s Divvy system. CityBike Wien is dirt cheap, with a one-time registration fee of only one euro, about a dollar, compared to $9.95 for a Divvy day pass. And the first hour of […]
Load more stories
      • Comment Moderation Policy
      • Our Funders
      • Staff
      • Donate
      • Sponsorship
        Follow Us:
      • Facebook
      • Twitter
      Streetsblog Chicago Logo