Lincoln Park

The Chicago Plan Commission yesterday unanimously voted to approve McCaffery Interests' plan to build two 19-story apartment towers in Lincoln Park on the site of the former Children's Memorial Hospital.

With Finkl & Sons Steel vacating 22 acres along Cortland Street between Clybourn Avenue and the Chicago River, the U.S. Environental Protection Agency has given the economic development corporation North Branch Works $200,000 to create a plan that keeps the area industrial. As part of this process, it's important for walking, biking, and transit to be integrated into the plan.

Divvy completed the first season's rollout with the installation of the 300th station at Lincoln/Halsted/Fullerton yesterday afternoon. As the system has grown, annual members are making more trips, even while the temperature drops.

Why do some people think Edgewater deserves to have a tranquil, car-free block of Kenmore Avenue running through its local college campus but Lincoln Park doesn’t?

The safety problems on Clark Street between North Avenue and Lincoln Park West are well known. The roadway is too wide, leading too many drivers to speed. Back in 2011, Bike Walk Lincoln Park co-organizer Michelle Stenzel wrote that Clark Street needs a road diet:

Chicago's bike-share system, which will go by the name of Divvy, is on track to launch by the Bike To Work Day Rally on June 14. Divvy will start out with 75 stations in downtown and River North before growing to about 400 stations in an area roughly bounded by Lake Michigan, Devon, California and 63rd. So will there be a bike-share station where you live or work? While station locations are still subject to change at this point, some details about the system map have emerged from aldermen's offices.

When I attended the ribbon cutting for the reconfiguration of Fullerton Avenue at Lake Shore Drive last December, there was a lot of talk from city officials about how the rehab would improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists. In reality this redesign, planned before forward-thinking Chicago Department of Transportation chief Gabe Klein took office, seems to have been done mostly for the convenience of drivers, at the expense of pedestrians and cyclists. Ironically, the new configuration seems to be delaying motorized traffic on the drive, but it's not just car commuters paying the price: the CTA’s vital express buses are also getting bogged down in congestion.

Shaun Jacobsen is an Uptown resident working in market research for a French company. He graduated recently from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with majors in French and sociology, and a minor in urban planning. He writes in a personal blog, Transitized, about international perspectives on local transportation issues. This article was originally published on Transitized on December 16, 2012.