Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about Mike Amsden

Surfing the Green Wave: CDOT Pilots Bike-Friendly Signal Timing on Wells

By John Greenfield | Jun 19, 2015 | 19 Comments

Here’s another clever new idea from the Chicago Department of Transportation. This week, they re-timed the stoplights along Wells Street between Huron Street and Wacker Drive in River North, so that southbound bicyclists who maintain a 12 mph pace get an unbroken series of greens. Known as a “green wave,” this kind of signal timing has been […]

Legalize It! Glenwood Route Will Make Contra-Flow Biking Safe & Predictable

By John Greenfield | Jun 11, 2015 | 21 Comments

Once in while, the Chicago Department of Transportation has a bikeway idea that’s so good, I wish that I’d thought of it first. Such is the case with the proposed Glenwood Avenue Neighborhood Route. This neighborhood greenway would run for 0.75 miles on Glenwood between Ridge and Carmen, and on Carmen for 0.25 miles between […]

Chicago Gets First Curb-Protected Lanes; Many Other Bike Projects on Deck

By John Greenfield | May 18, 2015 | 36 Comments

In a surprise move, the Chicago Department of Transportation recently began building the city’s first curb-protected bike lanes on Sacramento Drive through Douglas Park. This morning, assistant director of transportation planning Mike Amsden provided an update on this game-changing facility, plus a slew of other bikeways projects slated for 2015. Four years ago, Mayor Rahm […]

CDOT Previews Chicago’s Next Round of New Bikeways

By John Greenfield | Sep 12, 2014 | 21 Comments

The quarterly meetings of the Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council are a good place to get up to speed on Chicago’s latest bike developments. Wednesday’s meeting was no exception, with updates on bike lane construction, off-street trails, Divvy bike-share, and more. The sessions take place during business hours, but if your schedule allows you to attend, […]

Quigley Pushes Pedals, Better Transportation Funding, on Bike Tour

By John Greenfield | Sep 4, 2014 | 2 Comments

Yesterday, Congressman Mike Quigley (IL-05) took a spin on some of our city’s next-generation bikeways with a city staffer and local advocates, as part of his “Mike on the Move” campaign to highlight how federal funding can support Chicago transportation infrastructure. Quigley’s district covers a large swath of Chicago’s North Side and a few inner-ring […]

Central Loop Busway Will Reorganize, Expand Downtown Bike Lanes

By Steven Vance | Jun 12, 2014 | 24 Comments

Bicycle routes through the Loop suffer from “poor connectivity,” admits Mike Amsden, assistant director of transportation planning at the Chicago Department of Transportation. At yesterday’s Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council meeting, Amsden revealed details about how the Central Loop BRT project will improve the situation by spring of 2015. The Central Loop BRT project, Amsden said, will “move people […]

Bollard Blues: This Winter Was Rough on Chicago’s Protected Bike Lanes

By John Greenfield | Apr 11, 2014 | 26 Comments

[This piece also runs on the Green Lane Project’s blog.] In the wake of this brutal winter, Chicago’s third snowiest on record, some sections of the Dearborn protected bike lanes resemble a gap-toothed grin. Several of the white, plastic posts that delineate the bi-directional bikeway are missing in action. Roughly half of the posts that […]

Chicago Building Four Miles of Protected Bike Lanes This Year

By Steven Vance | Apr 7, 2014 | 13 Comments

The City of Chicago announced a new slate of bikeway projects today, outlining about 15 miles of new buffered bike lanes and a little more than four miles of protected lanes to be built in 2014. Under the plan for this year, protected bikeway construction in Chicago would continue to outpace every other American city except […]

Clybourn Ave and State St Could Get City’s First Curb-Separated Bikeways

By Steven Vance | Dec 12, 2013 | 21 Comments

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 […]

City Explains Gap in Snow Removal From Protected Bike Lanes This Week

By Steven Vance | Dec 12, 2013 | 65 Comments

Kinzie bike lane plowed & salted except for bridge & of course , bridge sidewalk @transitized pic.twitter.com/UvuFzScEGR — Ding Ding Let's Ride (@DingDingLR) December 9, 2013 Residual snow in bike lanes was a problem this week, putting cyclists in slippery situations. Twitter messages popped up about snow still in the Kinzie protected bike lane after […]

Eyes on the Street: New Buffered Lanes on North Halsted

By John Greenfield | Nov 12, 2013 | 17 Comments

The Chicago Department of Transportation is currently hoping to install up to 20.7 more miles of buffered and protected bike lanes before the close of the construction season. However, since thermoplastic striping doesn’t properly bond to asphalt at under 50 degrees Fahrenheit, the current freeze is delaying these projects, so it’s unlikely all of them […]

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