Events

On Monday the Active Transportation Alliance released their action plan for a continuous Chicago River Trail, one that would provide a corridor for pedestrians and bicyclists along the north and south branches of the river, connecting with existing suburban trails. You can read an executive summary of their proposal here.

In Slow Roll Chicago's third year of operations, the bike equity group faced some challenges, as cofounder Oboi Reed, who previously had been the driving force behind the organization, was largely out of the picture due to health-related issues. But it speaks well of the group’s resilience that other members were able to keep operations going in 2016, hosting dozens of community rides and encouraging scores of residents to sign up for low-cost Divvy for Everyone (D4E) bike-share memberships.

Two transit agencies working toward a common goal is unfortunately a rare phenomenon in our country. Thankfully this has not stopped the CTA and Pace from joining forces to brainstorm ways to improve public transportation in the Chicago region.

The 2016 National Shared Mobility Summit takes place in Chicago from October 17-19, bringing together leaders in the fields of bike-sharing, car-sharing, ride-sharing, microtransit and more, hosted by the Chicago-based Shared-Use Mobility Center. You can register for the event here and use the promo code STREETSBLOG to receive 10 percent off the cost of registration.

Steven and I had a great time hanging out with Streetsblog Chicago readers and Go Bronzeville members last night at our reader meetup at Baderbrau brewery on the Near South Side. Big thanks to Ronnie Matthew Harris, who leads the Go Bronzeville's work promoting transportation options in the neighborhood, for co-hosting the event with us.

The Chicago Transit Authority released a major study today, the next step in the developing project to extend the Red Line southward from the 95th Street terminal to 130th Street in the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood. The Environmental Impact Study is required by the federal government before the CTA can ask for funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The Northwestern University community, as well as Chicago-area bicyclists, are still processing the death of Chuyuan “Chu” Qiu, an 18-year-old student who was killed last month after she collided with a concrete truck while biking by the Evanston campus.

Note: Streetsblog Chicago will be on vacation on Monday, October 3, and will resume publication on Tuesday.

In the wake of the bike/truck collision that took the life of Anastasia Kondrasheva on Monday, as well as several other recent bike fatality cases, this Friday activists are holding a candlelight vigil and ghost bike installation at the crash site. The organizers say they’re through waiting for the city of Chicago to make progress on its four-year-old goal of eliminating all traffic deaths. Instead, they’re demanding that major steps be taken immediately to prevent such tragedies, especially those caused by commercial drivers.