Eyes on the Street

Three months ago, on the morning of July 24, I observed the intersection of Dearborn Street and Washington Street to collect data on bicycle traffic on Dearborn’s two-way protected bicycle lane, keeping track of factors like bicyclists' gender and helmet use rates. Last Thursday during the morning rush I returned to the bi-directional bikeway to observe it from another vantage point, in order to gather more information about Chicago’s bike culture.

Our extended New Bikeways Week wraps up today with a look at the 2.65-mile stretch of new protected and buffered lanes that the Chicago Department of Transportation recently installed on Vincennes Avenue from 84th Street to 103rd Street. Vincennes, a diagonal road leading downtown from the Far Southwest Side, is designated as a bike-priority Spoke Route in the city’s Streets for Cycling 2020 Plan. In general, the agency has installed buffered lanes with curbside car parking on the west side of Vincennes, and curbside bike lanes, with striped buffers and flexible posts to discourage motorists from driving in them, on the east side.

There are so many new and upgraded bike lanes to check out right now, we're extending New Bikeways Week another day. Some new and upgraded lanes on Halsted Street between Garfield Boulevard and Van Buren Street show, once again, that fresh asphalt makes all the difference in creating a high-quality cycling experience. The Chicago Department of Transportation recently repaved Halsted from Garfield to Exchange Street and striped brand-new buffered lanes, and the velvety tarmac makes them a pleasure to ride.

To borrow from a famous song, on State Street, that great street, I just gotta say, they’ve done something they haven’t done yet on (Chicago’s) Broadway. They’ve installed nearly perfect Windy City-style protected bike lanes.

New Bikeways Week pedals ahead as we look at new and upgraded bike lanes all over the city. Yesterday I visited the Lakeside development in South Chicago to get a tour in anticipation of the grand opening of what's known as the South Lake Shore Drive extension. After that, I checked out 1.25 miles of upgraded bike lanes on a recently repaved section of South Shore Drive, a northwest-southeast diagonal road, between 71st and 79th streets.

New Bikeways Week rolls on with a look at the new protected bike lanes on Canal Street between Harrison Street and Roosevelt Road. Several recently constructed Chicago bikeways, such as the lanes on Milwaukee Avenue between Kinzie Street and Elston Avenue, are largely made up of buffered lanes, sometimes with flexible posts that discourage, but don't prevent, drivers from entering the lanes. On these bikeways, there are only short sections where bicyclists are actually physically protected from moving cars by parked vehicles. However, the majority of this half-mile section of Canal features parking-protected bike lanes, which provide a nice feeling of security for risk-averse cyclists.

Here at Streetsblog, we’re not shy about pointing out when we feel a local politician is on the wrong side of a transportation issue, but we're also happy to spread the word when an alderman changes his or her stance and becomes friendlier to biking, walking, and/or transit.

It's "New Bikeways Week" here on Streetsblog, and John and I will be writing up the many new neighborhood greenways, protected bike lanes, buffered bike lanes, and refreshed bike lanes installed this summer and fall. First up: the Berteau neighborhood greenway.