Steven Vance

John Krause isn't the only north lakefront resident who realizes that the Illinois Department of Transportation's "Redefine The Drive" reconstruction of North Lake Shore Drive is a chance to reinvent how the city meets the shore and the street.

Today's the last day of our Commuter Idyll contest. That means it's your last chance to tell us how you switched from a stressful car commute to a relaxing transit ride or stress-relieving walk to work -- and win one of several prizes!

The Illinois Department of Transportation, whose secretary resigned last week after accusations about patronage hiring, distributed $545 million in gas tax revenue to fix streets in almost 3,000 jurisdictions last year. While this sounds like a lot of money, poor road and bridge conditions across the state can attest to the fact that these funds might not be going to the places that need them most. The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the region's federally designated metropolitan planning organization, has recently written about different methods that IDOT could use to more fairly distribute these revenues across the state's cities and counties.

Local architect John Krause sees the reconstruction of North Lake Shore Drive, one of Chicago's most scenic locations, as a chance to think big -- not just about the road, but also about parks, transit, trails, the shoreline, and the future of the city alongside it. The Illinois Department of Transportation isn't used to thinking like that, though, and so Krause sees its "Redefine the Drive" project as a process "that looks and feels suboptimal."

A new graduated driver licensing law takes effect in Illinois tomorrow. Illinois's GDL law sets restrictions on young drivers, including when and with whom they can drive. After "graduating" through several time periods and getting more on-road experience, new drivers can eventually obtain a full driver's license. Secretary of State Jesse White said in a press release [PDF] today that the state's GDL has led to a 60 percent drop in "teen driving fatalities" since its 2008 introduction. The new law followed from a years-long editorial campaign from the Chicago Tribune about the high number of teenagers who are killed or injured in car crashes.

Researchers at the MIT Media Lab published an interactive map this week that shows a new way to measure access across Chicago via different transportation modes. Instead of assessing how far one can travel by a certain mode, like a previous online map has shown, or showing the cost of travel, this map looks solely at relative travel time across four modes.

The new Chicago Department of Transportation bike parking program manager, Kathleen Murphy, described the upcoming summer and fall installation season during the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council meeting two weeks ago. She outlined three initiatives that will get over a thousand new bicycle parking spaces installed on sidewalks and roadways.

Construction delays have pushed back the Central Loop BRT project, from a projected 2014 start until next year or even later. The causes of the setback remain troublingly vague, and there is no clear timetable for the improvements proposed for four downtown streets, which are supposed to speed up six Chicago Transit Authority bus routes with a combined ridership of 30,000.

Harrison Street is often used by many bicyclists as a stealth route, particularly since it has one of the rare bridges without open metal grates, sees surprisingly light car traffic, and is the only east-west route that connects the South Loop and UIC. Harrison is marked as a "crosstown bike route" from Loomis Avenue (1400 W) to Michigan Avenue (200 E) in the Streets for Cycling Plan 2020, so it's due for an upgrade.

The Chicago Transit Authority has begun a series of projects aimed at completely overhauling nearly every part of the Red (and Purple) Line, its longest and busiest rapid transit route. They call these projects "Red Ahead," and together they should dramatically improve reliability on the line, while also increasing service, adding accessible facilities to stations, and the ability to run more and longer trains.