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Downtown Median Becomes Chicago’s First People Plaza
The Gateway, Chicago's first "People Plaza" seating area, recently opened at what Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein described as an "under-acknowledged public space" in the median of State Street between Wacker Drive and Lake Street. The installation is funded by the Chicago Loop Alliance, one of the downtown chambers of commerce, via a Special Service Area, and it was implemented as part of the Chicago Department of Transportation's Make Way for People public space initiative. Red and blue metal tables and chairs, several of them shaded by umbrellas, as well as several new flower boxes, dot the former concrete no-man's land. A couple weeks ago, at around 2 p.m., a handful of people were enjoying the space, including a group of women engrossed in conversation despite the traffic on either side of them.
June 25, 2013
Marshall Bike Lanes Are Getting Correct Signs Seven Months After Installation
In November, Chicago Department of Transportation crews installed bike lanes on Marshall Boulevard from Sacramento Drive in Douglas Park to 24th Boulevard in Little Village, near Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy. On most of this stretch the lanes are protected by parked cars on the west side of the street; to make room for the protected lanes, car parking was removed from the east side.
June 18, 2013
An IDOT Engineer Discusses the Department’s Ban on Protected Bike Lanes
This February, Steven Vance reported that the Illinois Department of Transportation has been prohibiting the installation of protected bike lanes on state jurisdiction roads in Chicago at least until the Chicago Department of Transportation collects three years of “safety data” on existing Chicago protected lanes. That means the earliest the ban would be lifted would be July 2014, three years after Chicago’s first protected lanes opened on Kinzie. IDOT is not blocking installation of buffered lanes.
June 17, 2013
CDOT Ups the Outreach to 11 With Mailing to 1.5 Million Drivers
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.
June 11, 2013
New York’s Experience Shows Ashland Bus Lanes Won’t Cause Carmaggedon
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).
May 23, 2013
More Bike-Share Locations Revealed; Full List Available Later This Month
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.
May 10, 2013
Chicago to Pursue Center-Running Bus Rapid Transit on Ashland Avenue
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.
April 19, 2013
Complete Streets Guidelines Codify Principles of Multi-Modal Streets
"...the transportation profession is coming to understand that more roads, more lanes, and longer signal cycles only induces more traffic."
April 12, 2013
Best. CDOT. Press. Release. Ever. “Potholepalooza” Rocks.
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.
April 5, 2013