CDOT

Since the third week of May, 1.55 million Chicagoans (!) have received a double-sided leaflet called "Tips for Motorists" informing people how to "make our streets safer for everyone." The mailing, sent by the City Clerk's office with the car sticker renewal form, was three years in the making and likely has the lowest cost of any outreach that the Chicago Department of Transportation has ever initiated. CDOT paid $8,000 for printing and contributed about $1,000 in postage fees, according to bike and pedestrian safety manager Charlie Short.

Converting a travel lane in each direction on Ashland Avenue to center-running bus lanes, greatly improving transit performance on the corridor, won't lead to Chicago's own version of Carmageddon (which actually never materialized).

Last month we reported on the first bike-share stations locations to be made public. Now more station locations are being revealed every day on the official Divvy Bikes Facebook page, and 1st Ward Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno has released a map of 19 locations.

After a year of study and outreach, today Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Transit Authority, and the Chicago Department of Transportation announced plans for center-running Bus Rapid Transit on Ashland Avenue. Once implemented, the project could set a national precedent for high-quality BRT, improving transit speeds as much as 80 percent during rush hour, according to today's announcement.

"...the transportation profession is coming to understand that more roads, more lanes, and longer signal cycles only induces more traffic."

When it was time to get the word out about ways to report pothole locations for an upcoming repair blitz, the Chicago Department of Transportation opted for a strategy that was, as the saying goes, "so crazy it just might work." The agency is encouraging citizens to alert the city about as many dangerous divots as possible from today through Sunday in a three-day “festival” of public input they’ve dubbed “Potholepalooza.” We were delighted to find an absurd, band-name-pun-riddled press release about the mock concert, including links to the Wikipedia pages for the groups, in our inboxes this morning. An excerpt is below; read the entire hilarious document here.

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

Chicago's taxi regulator, Rosemary Krimbel, the Business Affairs and Consumer Protection commissioner, revealed on Twitter this Sunday that her department is teaming up with the Chicago Department of Transportation to build awareness that people opening car doors need to look out for passing cyclists. Based on a simple reminder -- "LOOK" -- this city-led anti-dooring effort will join a grassroots campaign launched in early March.