Steven Vance

Biking on the West Side has been a mixed bag each time it's snowed this winter. When it snowed on the weekend after Thanksgiving it took more than two days for the protected bike lanes on Lake Street to be plowed. With last week's snowfall it’s been over a week, and the protected bike lanes on Franklin and Jackson Boulevards still haven’t been cleared as of Monday afternoon.

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Last month, colorful new wayfinding signs were installed near all of the access ramps for The 606, aka the Bloomingdale Trail. They point trail users to the nearest off-ramp and access park. The relatively small text on the signs is a little tricky to read if you're cycling past them at a moderate pace, but they're a welcome addition to the trail. They'll help people become more familiar with the street names in the four neighborhoods the elevated greenway passes through.

Last week, the Illinois Department of Transportation hosted the first public meeting on the North Lake Shore Drive reconstruction project in almost a year and a half. This state-jurisdiction road, which is located entirely within the city limits, currently restricts access to our lakefront. And since CTA "express" buses are forced to share travel lanes with cars, the buses are slowed to a crawl during peak-hour traffic jams.

The city's Divvy For Everyone program to get low-income and unbanked residents using the popular bike-share system looks to be gaining popularity itself. Yesterday the Chicago Department of Transportation's Divvy For Everyone program manager Amanda Woodall discussed D4E figures at the quarterly Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council, a public meeting where the city shares its bicycle initiatives.

A recent analysis of transit service in United States cities found that Chicago ranked #6, behind New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. Transit Score, from the Walk Score company now owned by the realtor Redfin, reviewed public schedules data provided by the transit agencies in each city to study how often trains and buses come to stops near people's homes.

The Center for Neighborhood Technology, a local community planning think tank, said that municipalities and public agencies are failing to follow their own plans. They're investing public funds for the region in economic development and transportation projects in undeveloped areas or away from train stations.

Yesterday, a road construction lobbying group tricked many local publications into promoting their highway expansion agenda.

Bus riders who take buses on Ashland and Western Avenues are getting faster, more reliable service. The Chicago Transit Authority is bringing back the old express bus routes on these streets, and they're also adding transit signal prioritization and cutting little-used stops on the local bus runs. While these are welcome improvements, the city should move forward with its plan for full-fledged bus rapid transit service on Ashland, which would be much faster than the express buses.