MBAC

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.

Divvy bike-share continues to expand, Assistant Transportation Commissioner Sean Wiedel said at the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council on Wednesday, and should reach 300 stations by the end of September. As of today there are 222 stations. Wiedel reported that over 7,700 annual members and numerous 24-hour pass users have made almost 325,000 trips and pedaled almost 950,000 miles since June 28.

An Illinois Department of Transportation employee driving a Ford pickup truck struck a pregnant Divvy rider at around 7 a.m. on Tuesday, September 3, at the intersection of Augusta Boulevard and Ashland Avenue. The 34-year-old victim, who was riding from East Village to work on Michigan Avenue, sustained injuries to her face and body; her pregnancy seems unaffected.

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.

Two of the major topics of the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council meeting on Wednesday were bike-share and the Dearborn Street bike lane.

The following conversation from Wednesday’s Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council meeting is a great example of what can be accomplished when you get some of Chicago’s key transportation planners and advocates in a room together. Many people in the local bike community have been wondering about the legality of cycling outside of a protected bike lane when one is provided. As the Chicago Department of Transportation installs more protected lanes on streets with high ridership, such as Milwaukee Avenue, it’s likely that many faster cyclists will opt to use the main roadway instead.

The quarterly Mayor’s Bike Advisory Council meetings, held on the 11th floor of City Hall, are an excellent way to get up to speed on local cycling initiatives. At Wednesday's meeting Mike Amsden, who manages the Chicago Department of Transportation’s bikeways projects, discussed the agency's proposal to build protected bike lanes on Milwaukee Avenue between Kinzie and Elston avenues, which would require parking removal. New on-street bike parking corrals, bike share kiosks and “People Spot” parklets might be part of the plan. “There are quite a few bars and restaurants, so we’ll be making sure, hey, if they’re losing a parking space they get a nice bike corral or a bike share station,” said CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein.