Interviews

Parents in Brighton Park, a predominantly Latino neighborhood on the Southwest Side, have been doing grassroots work to enhance safety, health and community by promoting better conditions for pedestrians around schools and parks, and by forming walking clubs. The Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, a local community development organization, has been supporting these residents’ efforts in a number of ways.

Before Divvy bike-share launched, Tribune transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch was skeptical Loop professionals would use the systems for short trips and errands. “Will businessmen put their briefcases in the basket on a Divvy bike and ride to meetings, risking sweat stains on expensive suits just to save a couple of dollars on a taxicab and possibly save a tree from pollution?” he wrote.

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

The Chicago Department of Transportation is currently hustling to construct 35 miles of buffered and protected bike lanes this year, which would bring us to a total of 65 miles of lanes installed under Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The department hopes to reach 100 miles by May 2015. However, in the rush to build a large quantity of lanes, it’s important to keep an eye on quality as well.

32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack, usually a progressive on transportation issues, recently made some backward comments about city initiatives that convert car parking spaces into facilities like Divvy stations, bike parking corrals and People Spot seating areas. Waguespack fretted about the impact these conversions would have on local businesses, but it’s clear that these innovative uses can be more effective ways to draw visitors to retail strips than simply warehousing cars on the public way. Even after I staked out a bike-share station in his ward and found that 12 customers used it during a two-hour period, while there was zero turnover at two adjacent car spaces, the alderman still wasn’t convinced.

The arraignment for Ryne San Hamel, the driver who fatally struck cyclist Bobby Cann, took place last Friday morning at the Cook County Courthouse at 26th and California. On May 29, San Hamel, 28, had a blood-alcohol content of .127 and was driving his Mercedes sedan at 50 mph when he struck Cann, 25, on the 1300 block of North Clybourn, according to police. San Hamel has been charged with reckless homicide, aggravated DUI, misdemeanor DUI, reckless driving, and failure to stay in the lane.

A recent discussion of Ventra, the new fare payment system for the CTA and Pace, with CTA spokesman Brian Steele, has allayed some, if not all, of my concerns about the impact on low-income Chicagoans. The cost of a single-ride ticket will rise from $2.25 to $3. This price hike can be avoided by purchasing a reusable Ventra card for $5, which is refunded as a transit credit when you register the card. However, registering the card requires access to a phone, the Internet, or the CTA headquarters, which might be a barrier for very low-income individuals.

At yesterday's press conference touting the CTA's claim of saving $10 million by cracking down on absenteeism, I asked the Mayor Rahm Emanuel why he's in favor of reconfiguring Ashland Avenue to create "gold-standard" bus rapid transit. I also asked how he plans to overcome the resistance to turning two of the four car lanes into bus-only lanes. However, as urban planner Steve Schlickman argued at a recent forum on BRT, the best way to convince people of the merits of the street redesign may be simply "doing it." The mayor's response provided a decent summary of the city's current strategy for improving transportation: working on multiple ways to move people around the Chicago more efficiently, not just people in cars.

Earlier this week we wrote up the Center for Neighborhood Technology's report about how the Chicagoland region is falling behind other major American metro areas when it comes to focusing growth near transit stations. In Philadelphia, San Francisco, DC, and New York, most new housing is being built close to transit, but not in Chicago. Here, most growth is happening outside of walking distance to transit, and the "transit shed" is losing jobs faster than the car-dependent areas of the region.