public meeting

The company that's redeveloping the Discount Mega Mall site in Logan Square has released a reworked proposal that adds much needed housing and dials back the number of car parking spaces, which makes the project a better fit for the walkable, transit accessible neighborhood. Terraco Real Estate and 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack are hosting a public meeting on the development, dubbed Logan's Crossing, at the Mega Mall on Thursday, May 7, at 6:30 p.m.

The Chicago Department of Transportation has nearly reached Mayor Rahm Emanuel's much-ballyhooed goal of building 100 miles of buffered or protected bike lanes during his first term. CDOT staff at last week's Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting said that they've striped 83 miles of the better bike lanes so far, and plan to surpass the 100-mile mark next spring.

The Sierra Club and other organizations intend to petition the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning to remove the Illiana Tollway from its regional plan, effectively disallowing the state from building the new highway. The deletion is possible because CMAP, the federally-designated Metropolitan Planning Organization for this region, is finalizing a mandatory update of its GO TO 2040 Plan.

The Forest Preserve District of Cook County is proceeding with plans to extend its popular North Branch Trail three miles further into the city limits, via a sidepath along Central Avenue. The extension has been planned since 1995, and has been shown as a dotted line on the Chicago bike map for several years. Some neighbors, though, worry about how the sidepath will impact cars traveling on or turning off Central Avenue.

This past Sunday, the usually forlorn bus transfer plaza above the Logan Square Blue Line station suddenly looked very different. Architects Krista Petkovsek and Kara Boyd had scrounged nearby alleys, rounded up a couple dozen used chairs, painted them orange, and scattered them around the plaza to spark a conversation about how to enliven the empty space, which is surrounded by an ever-increasing number of shops and restaurants.

More people were killed while walking in Chicago in the first seven months of this year, compared to the same time period last year. Chicago transportation commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld pointed out to the Mayor's Pedestrian Advisory Council last week that "this is the first increase since 2009."

The Chicago Department of Planning and Development wants to dispel the notion that "transit-oriented development" only means high-rises. The agency will host two public meetings to gather ideas from residents who live near the city's 77 Metra stations on the kinds of development and station changes they'd like to see in their neighborhoods. The meetings are part of a "typology study" to classify Metra stations relative to their surrounding neighborhoods' shared characteristics and potential for development and public space improvements.

I recently moved to the Windy City from Portland, Oregon, where I had served as a member of the Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee at the state level for bike and pedestrian issues. So I came into last Wednesday's meeting of the Mayor's Pedestrian Advisory Council excited to hear the breadth and depth of pedestrian advocacy and projects happening in Chicago. Based on my experience in Oregon, I expected a meeting structured around deliberate conversation and debate. Instead, what I saw was an information session.