Bicycling

Details are still emerging from a truck-bike crash that reportedly took the life of a female toddler riding on the back of her mother's bicycle this morning at Leland and Winthrop avenues in Uptown.

Parking was recently reconfigured at Montrose Beach at the request of local alderperson James Cappleman. The new layout raises traffic safety concerns.

While big vehicles are safer for people on the inside, they're more deadly for those on the outside. But there's a movement to require safer automobile designs and create disincentives to owning oversized vehicles.

The crash report says police recovered the license plate. Hopefully that, plus any available surveillance camera footage, will help bring the driver to justice.

The Chicago Department of Transportation provided some more information about its previously announced 5,000-bike giveaway. CDOT also released its schedule of summer Learn to Ride classes.

Obviously we need to keep pushing for a better transportation system. But let's appreciate the fact that, as far as American cities go, we've got it pretty good here.

Within the past few days drivers struck and critically injured a 54-year-old woman in West Lawn on the Southwest Side, as well as a man, 30, in Grand Crossing, on the Mid South Side.

A four-to-three conversion road diet was already planned on this stretch prior to the tragic crash.

While cyclists in Chicago facing blocked bike lanes and dangerous drivers may feel like second-class citizens every day, it is perhaps surprising that, under current Illinois law, they actually are.  Local governments  – municipalities, townships, and counties –  have an obligation to maintain roads in a condition that is safe to drive on, but have no such obligation to people biking.