Clybourn Avenue

The new curb-protected bike lane on Clybourn Avenue and Division Street in Old Town aren't even finished yet, but they're already getting great use. Bike-specific traffic signals should be added later this fall, completing the project. However, there's already a fly in the ointment – delivery drivers are blocking the lanes on a regular basis.

The Lakefront Trail. Milwaukee Avenue. The 606. And Clybourn Avenue?

Note: Keating Law Offices, P.C. has generously agreed to sponsor two Streetsblog Chicago posts about bicycle safety topics per month. The firm's support will help make Streetsblog Chicago a sustainable project. Keating Law Offices is not involved in the Bobby Cann case.

Governor Pat Quinn, who is up for re-election next week, shared warm words about sustainable transportation with the Active Transportation Alliance in response to their candidate questionnaire [PDF]. His words haven't always been matched by actions from his five-year-old administration -- but unlike opponent Bruce Rauner, at least he's talking to advocates.

The Chicago Department of Transportation presented a proposal last night to build curb-separated bike lanes on each side of Clybourn, from Halsted to Division Streets, and to reconfigure the oversized intersection where Clybourn meets Division, Sedgwick, and Orleans in front of Seward Park.

The Chicago Department of Transportation plans to tear down the structurally deficient 52-year-old viaduct that lifts traffic on Western Avenue over the intersection of Belmont and Clybourn. Instead of a gloomy concrete interchange walling off the edge of Roscoe Village, a more conventional surface-level intersection could be built as soon as 2016.

At yesterday's Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council, Chicago Bicycle Program project manager Mike Amsden revealed a new detail about the missing piece of the Clybourn Avenue buffered bike lane. The Chicago Department of Transportation is working with the Illinois Department of Transportation to install a protected bike lane on Clybourn that may be separated by a curb.

We’re currently in the midst of a bike lane building boom. Earlier this year the Chicago Department of Transportation completed groundbreaking protected lanes on Milwaukee from Kinzie to Elston, which involved removing about 50 percent of the parking spaces. Buffered lanes were striped on Wells from Chicago to North. Recently CDOT completed buffered lanes on a two-mile stretch of Madison between Pulaski and Central, and this week the department began or continued installation of the following 11 miles of bikeways: