Sharon Hoyer

On a frigid #GivingTuesday, the Active Transportation Alliance held its annual member party to celebrate the organization’s 2024 advocacy wins, and announce priorities for the year ahead. Well over 100 members gathered in the cavernous Revolution Brewing taproom – fittingly situated along new curb-protected bike lanes on Kedzie Avenue in Avondale. Attendees mingled for the first hour, sipping beers and scarfing down pizza from Dimo’s and chicken from Nando’s Peri Peri. Full racks in the coat-and-bike room proved that cold-weather cycling is alive and well in Chicago.

Note: This post includes images from the aftermath of a fatal bike crash that may be disturbing.

The talk featured representatives from Elevated Chicago, the CTA, the Department of Planning and Development, People for Community Recovery, and the Greater Roseland Chamber of Commerce.

A new report from the Chicago Department of Transportation has some encouraging news about the effects of roadway improvements on traffic safety. Thanks to investment in traffic calming and bike/pedestrian safety infrastructure, Chicago recorded a 27 percent decline in traffic deaths in 2023, down from a peak of more than 180 roadway fatalities in 2021. 

As in 2023, the Chicago Department of Transportation has been busy installing new bikeways across the city this year. As of this writing, the city’s website that tracks the installations lists 42 completed segments this year so far, with 20 more underway. Two of them are part of my return commute from a workplace in Englewood to my home Logan Square, and they're a welcome bit of infrastructure on a ride that includes the some of the best and worst aspects of biking in our city.

No word yet on whether a contraflow bike lane would be added to facilitate eastbound cycling from the path on the west side of rider to the east side.

And a few blocks away, CDOT is installing a Neighborhood Greenway on Long Avenue, where drivers recently injured and killed teens on bikes.

The project also has lots of other nifty Complete Streets features, like raised crosswalks, bus islands, and the conversion of a dangerous slip lane to a new plaza.

Photographer and interviewer Viktor Köves talks to residents he meets all over the city about their cycling habits, with the goal of getting more folks on spokes.

The study's findings contrast with People for Bikes studies that repeatedly ranked Chicago as one of the very worst large U.S. cities for cycling.