Navy Pier Flyover

Details released by police today indicate that the bike bridge wouldn’t have made a difference in this case.

After more than a decade of planning, the Chicago Department of Transportation finally kicked off work on the Navy Pier Flyover, a $60 million project that will solve the problem of the dangerous bottleneck at the center of the 18.5-mile Lakefront Trail. “We at the city have discussed this, we have debated it, we have deferred it for decades, and now it’s time to build it,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel at a groundbreaking this afternoon.

[This is the second post of a two-part series by guest contributor Kristen Maddox. Part I compared the modal hierarchy, bike infrastructure and bike culture in Chicago and Copenhagen. Kristen recently spent a year in Denmark as a Fulbright fellow and worked with Copenhagenize Design Company. Now back in the US, she is actively looking for work in bicycle planning and advocacy.]

We’d like to give a warm welcome to urban planners from across the country who are coming to our fair city for the American Planning Association’s national conference, April 13-17. The APA has published an excellent, 46-page Planner’s Guide to Chicago, chock full of Windy City sights and activities that will appeal to attendees, as well as some fascinating historic and contemporary maps.