Interviews

When I encountered Gary Resner, an accountant, and P.E. teacher Jessica Cervantes standing with Divvy bikes underneath the ‘L’ tracks at Clark and Lake, they were looking for a place to dock their rides, so I directed them to the Daley Plaza station, but not before asking them about their bike-share experience.

I visited several Divvy bike-share docking stations on my way downtown from the Northwest Side this safternoon, but didn't see much activity, save for Divvy staffers standing by to assist customers.

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

Lovers of sustainable transportation and beer rejoice! As I type this, on-street bike racks are being bolted into the asphalt in front of Revolution Brewing, 2323 North Milwaukee in Logan Square. This will be Chicago’s fifth on-street bike parking corral, replacing car parking spaces with bike racks. I talked with owner Josh Deth (an old friend of mine) about the benefits of the corral for his businesses and the community, and the sometimes-challenging process of navigating the city’s bureaucracy for permits.

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

It was exciting to wake up to the news that the CTA and Chicago Department of Transportation are planning to build center-running bus rapid transit with travel lane removals, since this is the most efficient and pedestrian-friendly of the four layouts they considered. Both Ashland and Western were possibilities for the route. They have decided to go with 16 miles of Ashland from Irving Park to 95th, starting with an initial segment running from the Orange Line at 31st to Metra’s Clybourn station at Cortland. You can read the basics of the proposal in Ben Fried’s earlier post about the announcement.

The toughest part of the city’s effort to create bus rapid transit in the downtown East-West Transit and the Western/Ashland BRT corridors will be convincing Chicagoans that it’s a good idea to remove travel lanes on major streets to make room for dedicated bus lanes. Help arrived today in the form of a $1.2 million Rockefeller Foundation grant that will be used to build local understanding and support for BRT in Chicago, as well as Boston, Nashville and Pittsburgh.

Keith Griffith is a Chicago-based freelance writer and arts critic.

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