Design

Don’t worry art lovers, the city assures us that the project to bring faster, more efficient bus service to the Loop won't permanently upstage one of Chicago’s most beloved public sculptures. The Chicago Department of Transportation says they have plans to use lighting and signs to highlight a statue by the famed Spanish artist Joan Miró, which is now located behind a giant Loop Link bus rapid transit shelter.

Nationally known urbanist and ex-Chicagoan Aaron Renn recently threw shade on our city’s beloved new linear park with a blog post titled "How Chicago’s 606 Trail Fell Short of Expectations." He wrote that the new path, aka the Bloomingdale Trail, doesn’t hold a candle to the High Line in Manhattan, where he now resides. However, I’d argue that The 606 is superior on a few different levels.

Residents in the Riverdale community area, which includes the Altgeld Gardens, Eden Green, Golden Gate, and Riverdale neighborhoods, are surrounded by barriers that make it hard to travel within and beyond the area. The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning recently awarded the Chicago Department of Transportation a Local Technical Assistance grant to create a multi-modal transportation plan for the area. In the grant application [PDF] CDOT noted that Riverdale residents are hemmed in by large industrial land uses, the Bishop Ford Expressway, four railroads, and the Little Calumet River. Additionally, all of the arterial streets are recommend truck routes, "creating an additional challenge for people walking and biking due to high truck traffic and speeds."

About three years ago, the Chicago Department of Transportation blazed a new trail by repurposing a lane of Dearborn Street to create the city's first two-way protected bike lane. Now they're building a similar two-way lane on Clinton Street as part of the Loop Link bus rapid transit project. After a few years of new bikeway designs, such as the Clybourn Avenue curb-protected lanes, the Clinton lane seems less game-changing and more like business as usual, but it has a few novel elements.

As the old saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Inspired by a post from Streetsblog USA's Angie Schmitt, I recently tried my hand at using a new-ish feature of Google Streetview to illustrate how Chicago street transformations have improved traffic safety and made neighborhoods more livable. Google now lets you access archived Street View images, so it's easy to see how our roadways have changed for the better.

Last year, Streetsblog USA's Angie Schmitt demonstrated how a new feature of Google Street View can be used to highlight street remix projects that have made cities more livable. Google now lets you look at archived Street View images, so it's easy to compare what streets looked like before and after they were reconfigured.

Instant gratification is great, when you can get it.

[This piece also runs in "Checkerboard City," John's transportation column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets on Wednesday evenings.]