Events

“I thought to myself, what if we could get 500 bicycles on the streets of Bronzeville?” said community activist Angela Ford, discussing the eureka moment that led her to organize this Saturday’s bike giveaway at Wendell Phillips High. “That would help instantly create a culture of cycling.”

It’s an exciting time to be in Uptown. The Broadway streetscape and road diet, which will hopefully be completed within a few months, as well as the reconstruction of the Wilson ‘L’ station have the potential to transform the center of the neighborhood. This potential has not gone unnoticed by the Metropolitan Planning Council. On Thursday evening in the Clarendon Park Community Center, MPC hosted the first of three community workshops to gather input on how residents would like to see their community develop.

Earlier this week, I reported that the proposal for a north-south neighborhood greenway in Rogers Park was left off the 49th Ward participatory budgeting ballot, but that bike-priority route is still expected to become a reality. Similarly, 22nd Ward PB voters didn’t elect to fund a proposal for an east-west greenway in the Little Village neighborhood, but that doesn’t mean the idea is dead in the water.

The city is gearing up to add 175 more Divvy bike-share stations this year, bringing the total to 475. On Thursday, 49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore hosted a community meeting at Eugene Field elementary to discuss potential Divvy station locations within Rogers Park. The meeting also covered the proposed north-south neighborhood greenway that’s a ballot item in the ward’s upcoming participatory budgeting election. Joining Moore to discuss these projects were Chicago Department of Transportation deputy commissioner Sean Wiedel and bikeways planner David Smith.

“I became one with the biking culture,” said Angela Ford, discussing her personal cycling renaissance during the keynote speech at Women on Wheels, a conference hosted last Saturday in Pilsen by the group Women Bike Chicago. “This is what I’m gonna live,” she decided eight years ago.

The Chicago Loop Alliance, one of downtown's chambers of commerce, has announced details about its ambitious slate of summer placemaking campaigns. These include monthly “Activate” arts events held in alleys, the Gateway People Plaza on State Street, new amenities for Pritzker Park, and pop-up lunchtime seating throughout downtown. CLA expects to spend $135,000 on placemaking projects this year, from special service area funds and corporate sponsorships.

On Thursday, the Illinois Department of Transportation kicked off the feedback process for the the North Lake Shore Drive rehabilitation's future alternatives analysis, at the third meeting of the project's task forces. During the previous two meetings, it seemed like IDOT would insist upon just another highway project, with minimal benefits for pedestrians, transit users and bicyclists. Yet as the process of determining the lakefront highway's future has evolved, some hope that the project can be steered in a more positive direction.

The city of Chicago has been pretty quiet on the subject of its Ashland bus rapid transit plan lately, but recently there have been encouraging signs that even some skeptics are warming to the concept.

As we’ve recently reported, the 49th Ward is holding its fifth participatory budgeting election this year, the 45th Ward is holding its second, and the 22nd Ward is taking the process for a spin for the first time. However, the 5th and 46th wards, which experimented with PB last year, won’t be taking part.