Local Businesses

CDOT recently made some, ahem, concrete improvements to the stretch of Broadway between Irving Park and Grace in Lakeview.

Chicago’s newest parklet in front of Intelligentsia Coffee, 2642 North Milwaukee, and adjacent to the Logan Theater, is a great addition to the neighborhood.

The show foregrounded the question of whether Chicago cyclists – both commuters and hobbyists – are ready to embrace the locally made bicycle movement.

However, while the national bike-share revolution has made cycling accessible and affordable to a wider swath of the population, municipal rental networks have been geared almost exclusively toward able-bodied riders. That's about to change in June, when Portland, Oregon, will launch an adaptive bike rental program as an extension of its Biketown bike-share system. Detroit is currently planning a similar approach. Local disability and bike advocates say Chicago should also get with the program and add an accessibility component to the Divvy network.

As Chinatown residents work to maintain the neighborhood's identity and keep it affordable for longtime residents, they also want to improve transportation access.

I applaud the city’s of Chicago’s decision to implement “surge pricing,” properly known as congestion pricing, near Wrigley Field on game days and during concerts, and encourage them to look into using this strategy for other high-demand parking scenarios.

The Wicker Park-Bucktown business improvement district wants to widen the sidewalk to create more pedestrian space across from the Polish Triangle.

Fixing the North/Damen/Milwaukee intersection, adding bike lanes on Milwaukee Avenue, and making the viaducts by the Clybourn Metra stop safer and more pleasant are all scenes we'd love to see.

Leaders with the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization are worried about the diesel exhaust from trucks passing through the neighborhood and the potential health and safety risks that this traffic poses for residents.