River West

Chicago Department of Transportation crews are busy making good on CDOT's promise to upgrade all existing "protected" bike lanes with precast concrete curbs by the end of 2023.

There are political and logistical hurdles to removing parking to make room for protected bike lanes in Chicago, but there's reason to believe the tide may be turning.

A motorist took out the old cyclist footrest on Milwaukee, but a new one has been installed.

The northbound and southbound bike lanes will each be closed for two weeks during construction.

In what looks to be a stunning miscarriage of justice, a jury acquitted the taxi driver, who struck and killed the pedestrian while speeding at a terrifying velocity in 2012.

Over the summer administrators and parents from the Chicago Academy for the Arts, a private school located at 1010 West North Avenue contacted us about their campaign to improve pedestrian safety near the school. In particular they were concerned about the Chicago/Milwaukee/Ogden intersection, one of the most crash-prone in the city, located a block west of the school.

After art student Lisa Kuivinen, 20, was fatally struck on August 16 by a flatbed truck driver while biking downtown in a Milwaukee Avenue bike lane, many people noted that the bike lane was blocked by construction zone nearby at 830 North Milwaukee. While the lane closure doesn't seem to have been a factor in the crash, the case has drawn attention to the problem of the many current Milwaukee Avenue work zones creating a hazard for cyclists.

Yet another developer is becoming prolific at creating mixed-used, transit-oriented developments. Mark Sutherland has proposed a new TOD building called 710 Grand, first revealed by Curbed in August, at 710 W. Grand Ave., one block east of the Grand Blue Line station in the River West neighborhood. This will be the third TOD building in Sutherland's Wicker Park Apartments portfolio. The project requires a zoning change and it's one of several proposed developments that will be considered at this Thursday's Chicago Plan Commission meeting.

Property developer Zack Cupkovic said he didn't really discover Goose Island until four years ago, even though he grew up in the nearby Lakeview neighborhood. The man-made island was created in 1857, when the North Branch canal was completed on the east side of the land mass, separating it from the mainland. When you drive across the island on Division Street, Cupkovic said, "it barely seems like you're going over an island."