UIC

The Chicago Department of Transportation recently installed new buffered bike lanes on a 0.75-mile stretch of Harrison between Halsted and Loomis next to UIC and Little Italy as part of a water main project.

Unfortunately, a transportation project that has the potential to positively transform the University of Illinois at Chicago's campus was passed over for federal funding. The $29.3 million initiative, called Crossroads & Connections, would make significant changes to campus streets in order to make walking and biking safer and more convenient.

This week, the inaugural Bike2Campus Week seeks to spur students' budding interest in bicycling to reach Chicago's many university and college campuses. A partnership between the Chicago Network of Sustainability in Higher Education, the Chicago Department of Transportation, and Divvy seeks to entice students with prizes, like a four-year Divvy membership for the top pedaler, and with friendly competition between schools.

To use Divvy you must have a debit or credit card. Currently, there's no way around that, so even though an annual Divvy pass is a bargain at $75, the system is unavailable for many Chicagoans. A significant share of city households -- 12.7 percent -- don't have bank accounts, according to graduate research by Michael Carney at the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs. That translates to at least 135,000 people and perhaps more than twice that number, Carney's demographic research indicates.

As part of the Circle Interchange project, the Illinois Department of Transportation will rebuild many of the bridges around the confluence of three highways. One of them is the Peoria Street bridge, a vital connection that links two college buildings and West Loop residences north of the Eisenhower Expressway to the University of Illinois at Chicago south of the highway.

The Circle Interchange highway expansion project began construction Wednesday. At a press conference on the Peoria Street bridge, Governor Quinn stressed the job creation aspect of the $475 million project. What Quinn didn't mention is that any $475 million infrastructure project would create a lot of jobs.

Michelle Stenzel is co-chair of Bike Walk Lincoln Park, a committee to make walking and cycling safe in that neighborhood.

On Friday, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning transportation committee voted to recommend the addition of the Illinois Department of Transportation's $410 million Circle Interchange project to GO TO 2040, the official regional plan. According to CMAP's estimates, the project will increase carbon emissions and decrease transit trips. Governor Pat Quinn has directed IDOT to pursue the Circle Interchange expansion, but it cannot receive federal funds unless it is in the regional plan.

An expensive new interchange expansion that the Illinois Department of Transportation is pushing for downtown threatens to dump more traffic on Chicago streets, but the project still needs approval from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning to move forward. While IDOT is simultaneously proposing some improvements for biking and walking in the area, all of those could be implemented without the new highway components. The deadline for public comments to CMAP about the project is Monday.