Steven Vance

The Chicago Department of Transportation has added many miles of protected and buffered bike lanes across the city, but it can be challenging to find space for protected lanes on the streets where they are needed the most. CDOT has implemented “road diets” on several streets, replacing excess car lanes with protected lanes, which has the added benefit of reducing speeding and shortening pedestrian crossing distances. The Dearborn two-way protected bike lane, through the heart of the Loop, is the most notable example of this tactic.

Pavement markings installed in 2012 in the Humboldt Park neighborhood to designate bike lanes and "Children’s Safety Zones" are quickly disappearing, less than six months after installation.

The Wells Street bridge is under construction until early morning Monday, March 11, and Brown and Purple Line Express trains have modified service. The Chicago Department of Transportation is replacing part of the southern bridge leaf in a 9-day stretch; a part of the northern leaf will be replaced in April.

Back in August, longtime bicycling activist Randy Neufeld – currently the director of the SRAM Cycling Fund and formerly the Active Transportation Alliance's first paid staffer – outlined an intriguing proposal in Chicago Magazine: building a bike-and-bus highway into the north Lake Shore Drive reconstruction project.

The "Look Chicago" community group will conduct its first outreach to prevent dooring crashes on Saturday, March 2, in the Wicker Park neighborhood. The Look Chicago street team will meet at 11 a.m. at Milwaukee and Damen to distribute informational flyers to pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers, proceeding to the site where cyclist Dustin Valenta was doored by a parked motorist, then seriously injured by a hit-and-run truck driver.

Chicago Cycling Club president Anne Alt is collecting information from Chicagoland residents about their how they combine bicycling with Metra trips, for a survey that will be open until next Wednesday. She explains the survey's purpose:

Let's step back from the discussion about how Chicago is implementing rapid bus routes and take a long view of how transit in Chicago might transform if these first BRT routes are successful.

Last week the CTA and Chicago Department of Transportation unveiled the proposed lane configuration for the Central Loop East-West Transit Corridor. According to the city’s press release, the improvements will include dedicated bus lanes on Canal, Washington, Madison and Clinton, delineated with colored pavement and additional signs. The system, which is slated to open for service next year, would serve some 1,700 buses and would include level boarding via “island” bus platforms, plus queue jumps at key intersections.

A follower tweeted to us yesterday, "Let's get real bus rapid transit on Ashland/Western before we spend more money to get suburbanites to Navy Pier." It's an understandable concern, but when you look at the proposal a little closer it doesn't hold up. While CDOT's map of the Central Loop BRT does make it look like bus routes to Navy Pier will receive a big share of the improvements, the fact is that the project is targeted to speed Chicagoans' daily bus trips.