Kinzie Street

Regarding a factually incorrect tweet he posted this week, Reilly admitted, "I was pretty fired up. I did go too far... No, I don't think the Chicago Federation of Labor muscled this through."

"It takes forever to get the city to even repaint a bike lane or repair a flexi-post, but they can remove the posts and markings almost overnight," a reader noted.

Adding robust physical protection is very important for making bikeways safer and more appealing to less-confident cyclists.

[Last year the Chicago Reader launched a weekly transportation column written by Streetsblog Chicago editor John Greenfield. This partnership allows Streetsblog to extend the reach of our livable streets advocacy. We syndicate a portion of the column after it comes out online; you can read the remainder on the Reader’s website or in print. The paper hits the streets on Thursdays.]

Downtown alderman Brendan Reilly is known as the man who tried to get the Kinzie protected bike lanes removed, but he recently racked up some bike lane karma. Shaun Jacobsen, the urban planner behind the transportation blog Transitized, wrote to Reilly to about poor pavement conditions on the Dearborn two-way protected bike lane. The alderman promptly reached out to the appropriate city departments to try to solve these problems.

Alderman Brendan Reilly submitted an order to city council on Wednesday that would compel Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld to remove the Kinzie Street protected bike lane between Dearborn and the Chicago River because he says it conflicts with Wolf Point construction truck traffic.

The steps, broken pavement, and roller coaster ramps at the southwest corner of Kinzie Street and Clark Street were all repaired recently. The construction was originally supposed to wrap up by spring 2013, but didn't finish until December. The six-month long construction was unusually complex, according to 42nd Ward Alderman Reilly's newsletter.

Biking downtown has improved substantially with the addition of protected bike lanes on Kinzie Street and Dearborn Street, but much work remains to be done to create a safe, cohesive bike network linking people to Chicago's biggest employment center.