Design

At public meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, officials from the Chicago Department of Transportation and the Obama Foundation revealed the latest site plans for the Obama Presidential Center ("the library"), which included details about how the foundation plans to build an aboveground parking garage on parkland.

The new separated bike path between North Avenue and Fullerton Avenue is just about ready for its ribbon cutting, and it’s unofficially open for riding.

CDOT plans to striped “dashed bike lanes” on Milwaukee between Division and North, where putting in conventional lanes would require removing dozens of car parking spots.

The "Bike Talk" panel discussion covered everything from the history of bicycling in our city, to what it will take to make bikes accessible to all residents.

The North Branch Trail is a popular multi-use trail operated by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. It runs along the North Branch of the Chicago River and the Skokie Lagoons from the Northwest Side of Chicago to the Chicago Botanic Gardens in Glencoe. The trail was recently extended four miles south from its previous southeastern terminus at Devon and Caldwell in the city’s Edgebrook neighborhood to the Irene C. Hernandez Picnic Area at Foster and Kostner, near North Mayfair. This brings the total trail length to 22 miles.

CDOT is planning to install bike lanes on the sidewalks of Uptown's Lawrence and Wilson viaducts. It appears that this is a strategy to prevent future homeless encampments

Thanks to discussion of the issue on The Chainlink social networking site and coverage on Streetsblog, the CTA is promising to ensure that there’s no net loss of bike parking.

There are currently 32 bike spaces in a relatively secure indoor location. So far there are only concrete plans for 16 outdoor spots at the new station.

These streets are already nice places to ride, but street markings, wayfinding signs, and traffic calming will make them even better.