Events

The Illinois Department of Transportation showed final plans for the Circle Interchange expansion last Thursday at the last public meeting about the project. You now have a week and a half to tell IDOT your thoughts on the record before the public comment period ends July 12 (see how below).

The Illinois Department of Transportation is hosting a meeting tonight to present adjustments to the $475 million Circle Interchange project. The project, justified as way to increase automobile speeds and reduce congestion-related delays and crashes, will still have an ugly flyover over Halsted Street and at eye level of many residents in a nearby apartment building.

Two of the major topics of the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council meeting on Wednesday were bike-share and the Dearborn Street bike lane.

The annual Bike to Work Rally serves as a state of the union for Chicago cycling, and this year there’s a lot of news to report, with the impending launch of the Divvy bike-share system, completion of the Milwaukee protected lanes, and financing secured for the Chicago Riverwalk. This was the first time Mayor Rahm Emanuel has appeared at the rally and he seemed to enjoy soaking in the crowd’s enthusiasm for the many bike initiatives that have launched since he took office about two years ago.

Last week GOOD Chicago, a progressive think tank, hosted a panel discussion at the Chicago Cultural Center about the city’s plans for bus rapid transit on Ashland Avenue between 95th and Irving Park. The project will start with an initial segment running from the Orange Line at 31st to Metra’s Clybourn stop at Cortland. The panel, moderated by Tracy Swartz, RedEye’s CTA reporter, featured Active Transportation Alliance director Ron Burke; CTA Manager of Strategic Planning Joe Iacobucci; Steve Schlickman, head of UIC’s Urban Transportation Center; and Chris Ziemann, the city’s BRT manager. After the roundtable, George Aye of Greater Good Studio led a hands-on workshop to design BRT bus stop prototypes.

Robert "Bobby" Cann was cycling on Clybourn Avenue last Wednesday when he was hit and killed by Ryne San Hamel, 28, of Park Ridge, driving a Mercedes sedan at 50 MPH, with a blood-alcohol content of .127, according to police. San Hamel appeared in court on Saturday where he was charged with reckless homicide, aggravated DUI, misdemeanor DUI, reckless driving, and failure to stay in the lane. He is being held on $100,000 bond and had his passport revoked.

Divvy bike-share bicycles were on display at yesterday's Bike the Drive post-ride festival in Grant Park, giving the public its first peek at the blue bikes which just arrived in town on Saturday. I took a spin around the block with Scott Kubly, deputy commissioner at the Chicago Department of Transportation. This was my first time riding a bike manufactured by the BIXI company. They're available in Toronto (where Anne Alt reviewed her experience), Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Montreal, and Boston. The bikes are good-looking, sturdy, and comfortable. They weigh about 45 pounds, which is 20 pounds less than my daily Dutch cargo cycle.

If you live or work on the Near Northwest Side and/or bike commute regularly on Milwaukee Avenue, try to stop by tonight’s community meeting on the city’s proposal for buffered and protected bike lanes on Milwaukee between Kinzie and Elston. The meeting takes place from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Intuit arts center, 756 North Milwaukee.

Residents of the 49th Ward, which includes Rogers Park and the Loyola University Campus, can now vote on how to spend their alderman's discretionary "menu" money. In 2010, Alderman Joe Moore became the first U.S. politician to implement this democratic budgeting process, called participatory budgeting. This year he's allocating $1 million of the ward's $1.3 million in menu funds for projects proposed and approved by his constituents. As in the other three wards participating in the participatory budgeting process, residents 16 and older can vote.