Bogota

We need to make walking, biking, and transit safer and more appealing, or we're going to see an increase in driving, congestion, pollution and crashes once the Stay at Home order is lifted.

Having supportive city officials has been key to opening opening up streets to people during the COVID-19 crisis.

If we want more people to ride buses and bikes, we've got to help make the experience not only safe and efficient, but enjoyable.

The city's traffic fatality rate declined by roughly 50 percent between 1996 and 2006. Key to that result was an initiative to address traffic deaths and homicides in tandem.

It's common to see non-CTA drivers, especially operators of private commuter shuttles, illegally using the lanes. Here’s a cheap, fast, effective solution to this problem.

Chicago would be wise to emulate Bogotá's extensive TransMilenio bus rapid transit system and the Sunday Ciclovía or "cycleway" program, which opens a roughly 75-mile network of streets for car-free recreation and draws some two million people each week.

Slow Roll Chicago cofounder Oboi Reed has traveled to a number of biking hotspots around the U.S. this year, to learn about how other American cities are working to promote bike equity, and talk about his group’s efforts to encourage cycling in communities of color on Chicago's South and West Sides. But his latest fact-finding journey took him further afield, to Colombia, South America, where he recently spent 11 days checking out car-free Ciclovía events and meeting with local city planners, bike advocates, and activists.

Opponents of the CTA’s plan to build fast, reliable bus rapid transit on Ashland Avenue have argued that, despite the success of BRT in numerous international and U.S. cities, Ashland is a unique street where converting car lanes to dedicated bus lanes won’t work. Streetsblog readers also have asked for examples of systems that share the elements of the CTA’s plan: a four-lane street converted to two travel lanes plus center-running bus lanes, with most left turns prohibited, on-street parking, and some local, curbside bus service retained.