Design

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

In an article posted on DNAinfo yesterday, business owners along Clybourn Avenue in Old Town said they were worried that parking conversions for upcoming curb-protected bike lanes on the street might scare off customers. However, the Illinois Department of Transportation, which is spearheading the project, and the Chicago DOT, which is consulting, have crunched the numbers on the parking issue, and it looks like everything will work out just fine.

With the Friday opening of the Chicago Riverwalk’s third new section, dubbed The River Theater, wheelchair users, families with strollers, and bicyclists have a new way to get down to the riverfront from Upper Wacker. This segment, located between Clark and LaSalle, consists almost entirely of stair-stepped, amphitheater-style seating. However, the steps are split up by gently graded, ADA-compliant ramps that zigzag back and forth across the stately new public space.

I'm not sure what the Chicago Department of Transportation has been smoking lately, but they've cleverly proposed installing a contra-flow bike lane on a northbound stretch of Glenwood Avenue in Edgewater. Southbound cycling is already common here because Glenwood is a safer, more relaxing alternative to nearby Clark Street and Broadway.

Once in while, the Chicago Department of Transportation has a bikeway idea that’s so good, I wish that I’d thought of it first. Such is the case with the proposed Glenwood Avenue Neighborhood Route. This neighborhood greenway would run for 0.75 miles on Glenwood between Ridge and Carmen, and on Carmen for 0.25 miles between Glenwood and the Broadway buffered bike lanes. The project is expected to cost no more than $75,000, and CDOT hopes to install it later this summer.

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

In a 2009 Chicago Reader story, I noted that the best-case scenario for the Bloomingdale Trail elevated greenway would be a 2016 opening, in time for the Olympics, if then-mayor Richard M. Daley succeeded in winning the games. We all know what happened with the Olympic effort.

Other local media outlets have given plenty of airtime to Lakeview residents who are opposed to the CTA’s Red-Purple Bypass project, better known as the Belmont Flyover. Their concern is completely understandable, since the transit agency’s plans call for 21 buildings on 16 parcels of land to be demolished, partially demolished, or relocated.

Chicagoans are in for a treat this Saturday, when the Bloomingdale Trail, aka The 606, finally opens to the public. For roughly two decades, residents have been pushing to turn the 2.7-mile railroad right-of-way into a multiuse path and linear park.