Bill Higgins

The department needs to promptly plow bikeways after blizzards, or else face arguments that riders were better off with old-style, paint-only bike lanes.

On Tuesday, the Chicago Department of Transportation hosted a webinar providing an overview and guidelines for compliance with Travel Demand Study and Management Plan (TDM) Requirements.

While transportation chief Gia Biagi publicly said renaming the drive would be challenging but doable, emails reveal that the department is actually opposed to the change.

Chicagoans by now have noticed dozens, if not hundreds, of signs in the middle of two-lane streets telling people driving and bicycling about the state law requiring them to stop for people in crosswalks. The statewide law went into effect in 2010, and Chicago passed an identical law in 2011. Transportation departments, residents, and the Active Transportation Alliance have been working hard ever since to educate people about the law, and these signs represent the best effort so far because of their immediate effect.

The bus rapid transit NIMBY group known as the Ashland-Western Coalition has been doing its darndest to get aldermen to sign on to its severely watered-down alternative proposal to the CTA’s plan for fast, reliable, “gold-standard” BRT on Ashland Avenue. Fortunately, response from local politicians to the coalition’s anemic “Modern Express Bus” proposition - essentially just bringing back the old, slow #X9 Ashland express bus -  has been lukewarm. Better still, 47th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar, who already has a good track record for promoting sustainable transportation, has thrown his hat in the ring as a strong supporter of the full BRT plan.

It's been a long time in the making, but it looks like the Berteau Neighborhood Greenway, albeit a somewhat watered-down version, will be debuting this summer. On Friday 47th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar announced that in June the Chicago Department of Transportation will begin construction of the greenway, a traffic-calmed, bike-priority street, known elsewhere as a "bike boulevard," on a one-mile stretch between Lincoln and Clark. The work will start immediately after the city's water department replaces a 100-year-old water main on Berteau between Ravenswood and Ashland.