Rahm Emanuel

Today’s Sun-Times article on the city’s plans to implement fast, efficient bus rapid transit on Ashland Avenue and in the Loop didn’t provide much new information on the projects, and it included a few errors. However, it did provide a bit of a window on the mayor’s thoughts on the subject.

After Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor, he released a transition report that called for creating 100 miles of protected bike lanes by May 2015. It was an ambitious and admirable goal. The report defined protected lanes as "separated from traveling cars and sit[ting] between the sidewalk and a row of parked cars that shield cyclists from street traffic." In December, the Department of Transportation changed the definition of protected bike lane to include what the rest of the country calls a buffered bike lane.

Rahm Emanuel celebrated the one-month anniversary of the Divvy bike-share system at a ribbon cutting this morning for a new docking station at Fosco Park Community Center, 1312 South Racine. The mayor announced that with 117 stations scheduled to be online by the end of the day, Divvy will become the fourth-largest public bike system in the country, after New York City’s Citi Bike, Washington D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare, and Minneapolis’ Nice Ride.

At yesterday's press conference touting the CTA's claim of saving $10 million by cracking down on absenteeism, I asked the Mayor Rahm Emanuel why he's in favor of reconfiguring Ashland Avenue to create "gold-standard" bus rapid transit. I also asked how he plans to overcome the resistance to turning two of the four car lanes into bus-only lanes. However, as urban planner Steve Schlickman argued at a recent forum on BRT, the best way to convince people of the merits of the street redesign may be simply "doing it." The mayor's response provided a decent summary of the city's current strategy for improving transportation: working on multiple ways to move people around the Chicago more efficiently, not just people in cars.

The annual Bike to Work Rally serves as a state of the union for Chicago cycling, and this year there’s a lot of news to report, with the impending launch of the Divvy bike-share system, completion of the Milwaukee protected lanes, and financing secured for the Chicago Riverwalk. This was the first time Mayor Rahm Emanuel has appeared at the rally and he seemed to enjoy soaking in the crowd’s enthusiasm for the many bike initiatives that have launched since he took office about two years ago.

On Monday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel outlined some changes he's proposing to the infamous parking meter deal the City Council approved in 2009 (henceforth to be referred to as "The Parking Meter Deal," in recognition of its unique awfulness). Unfortunately, Chicago isn't getting a better deal. In fact, the city's parking policy is set to get worse.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s announcement today that he has renegotiated the city's much-hated parking meter contract to save an estimated $1 billion over the next 71 years appears to be a big win for Chicago residents. The introduction of a new pay-by-cell option, albeit with a 35-cent convenience fee, also seems to be a good thing. But while many Chicagoans will cheer the news that Sunday parking would be free as part of the agreement, in reality this may hurt local businesses and lead to more traffic jams.

After a year of study and outreach, today Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Transit Authority, and the Chicago Department of Transportation announced plans for center-running Bus Rapid Transit on Ashland Avenue. Once implemented, the project could set a national precedent for high-quality BRT, improving transit speeds as much as 80 percent during rush hour, according to today's announcement.

At a waterside press conference this afternoon with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, outgoing U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood promised that the roughly $100 million federal loan that will bankroll the Chicago Riverwalk will definitely be finalized by June. Earlier this winter the Chicago Department of Transportation sent LaHood’s agency a letter of interest for a loan through the Transportation Infrastructure Finance Innovation Act. Now the USDOT is inviting CDOT to submit a formal application for the loan, which will cover almost the entire project cost.