Mike Amsden

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 will be completed this year.

Our extended New Bikeways Week wraps up today with a look at the 2.65-mile stretch of new protected and buffered lanes that the Chicago Department of Transportation recently installed on Vincennes Avenue from 84th Street to 103rd Street. Vincennes, a diagonal road leading downtown from the Far Southwest Side, is designated as a bike-priority Spoke Route in the city’s Streets for Cycling 2020 Plan. In general, the agency has installed buffered lanes with curbside car parking on the west side of Vincennes, and curbside bike lanes, with striped buffers and flexible posts to discourage motorists from driving in them, on the east side.

Here at Streetsblog, we’re not shy about pointing out when we feel a local politician is on the wrong side of a transportation issue, but we're also happy to spread the word when an alderman changes his or her stance and becomes friendlier to biking, walking, and/or transit.

Last Thursday, Dutch "mobility advisor" Sjors van Duren stood by the Lakefront Trail, pointed to the block of Monroe Street between Columbus and Lake Shore Drive, and asked, "What is the function of this street?" The answer, it was agreed, is to distribute automobiles between the Loop and Lake Shore Drive. Van Duren works for the Arnhem Nijmegen City Region in the Netherlands, and he was brought to Chicago last week by the Dutch Cycling Embassy (a public/private program that aims to export Dutch cycling policies) to lead a group of local advocates, planners, engineers, and neighbors to find a way to make Monroe Street better for cycling between the Loop and Lakefront Trail.

Well-designed protected bike lanes are generally far superior to buffered lanes, because it provides actual physical protection from moving cars, not just paint on the road, which encourage more risk-averse people to ride. On the other hand, if protected lanes are off the table, well-executed buffered lanes are nothing to sneeze at.

The Chicago Department of Transportation is currently hustling to construct 35 miles of buffered and protected bike lanes this year, which would bring us to a total of 65 miles of lanes installed under Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The department hopes to reach 100 miles by May 2015. However, in the rush to build a large quantity of lanes, it’s important to keep an eye on quality as well.

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:

The Chicago Department of Transportation will redesign Broadway between Montrose and Foster, a mile-long stretch that's currently a very car-centric four- to five-lane road. The street is so inhospitable that one resident at a public meeting Wednesday night said she doesn't drive, walk, or bike on it.