Funding & Finance

Et tu Blair?

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

The Chicago Department of Transportation recently held a public meeting about their clever proposal to install a contra-flow bike lane on Glenwood, between Ridge and Carmen, in Edgewater. More quietly, CDOT and the 49th Ward have been moving forward with an equally promising plan for a neighborhood greenway on Glenwood and and Greenview in Rogers Park.

Divvy bike-share has been a resounding success on many fronts, with 476 docking stations installed and more than four million trips taken since the system launched two years ago. However, like most bike-share networks across the country, there’s plenty of room for improvement when it comes to access and ridership in low-income communities. Thanks to a $75,000 grant from the Better Bike Share Partnership, announced last week, the Chicago Department of Transportation will be taking steps to help close the bike-share gap with a campaign called "Divvy for Everyone."

[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.

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.

Just as Richard M. Daley made his mark on Chicago with Millennium Park, Rahm Emanuel is creating a number of marquee public space projects, including the redevelopment of Northerly Island, Maggie Daley Park, and the Bloomingdale Trail. The latest is a new, two-block stretch of the Chicago Riverwalk, between State and Clark, which opened on Saturday. The riverwalk extension is slated to reach Lake Street and Wacker Driver next year, creating a car-free pedestrian and bike route all the way to Lake Michigan.

The Forest Preserves of Cook County recently announced that they will be offering bike rental at six locations this summer. The forest preserve district’s board approved a contract with Bike and Roll, Chicago’s largest bike rental company, which will be setting up automated rental stations, plus a staffed facility at the Dan Ryan woods. "We're really excited to have another way to encourage people to visit the forest preserves and engage in physical activity when they get there," said district spokeswoman Lambrini Lukeidis.