Uptown

We don’t usually cover the performing arts here at Streetsblog Chicago, but I thought our readers would want to know about the original play “RIDE,” written by Neil Connelly, which discusses local bike safety issues, focusing on the aftermath of a fatal crash.

New York’s Chelsea neighborhood has the High Line pedestrian path, and Chicago’s Northwest Side has the Bloomingdale Trail elevated greenway. Now groups in Chicago’s Uptown community are pushing to create the next great linear park by a rail line, a project they’ve dubbed the Wilson Underline.

Steven Vance and I took advantage of today’s sunshine to check out the progress of two major transit projects that are slated to wrap up this spring.

First built in 1975, the Sunnyside Pedestrian Mall is a leafy, car-free walkway that runs for two blocks between Beacon Street and Magnolia Avenue in Uptown’s Sheridan Park section. With its benches, plantings, and mosaic-covered pillars, it should be a popular place for all kinds of positive activity, along the lines of Lincoln Square’s Kempf Plaza.

Cedar Street Cos., the company behind the FLATS Chicago developments, which typically involve converting single-room occupancy buildings to more upscale rental units, has proposed two new apartment buildings near the Wilson 'L' station in Uptown.

[This piece also ran in Checkerboard City, John's transportation column in Newcity Magazine, which hits the streets on Wednesday evenings.]

The resurgent downtown economy and the growing demand for car-lite living, both in Chicago and nationally, have spurred an apartment-building boom that's transforming neighborhoods citywide. Many of these apartments are rising along the Chicago Transit Authority's rail lines, partially thanks to a recent change to the city's zoning ordinance that has made it easier to build parking-lite buildings near transit.

The Chicago Department of Transportation is currently hashing out an ordinance to regulate how motorists will behave on the Argyle “shared street" [PDF], a pedestrian-priority zone slated for construction next year. The streetscape project -- the first of its kind in Chicago -- will create a plaza-like feel along Argyle from Broadway to Sheridan, by raising the street level and eliminating curbs. Slow motorized traffic and car parking will still be permitted on the street, but pedestrians will rule the space.

Uptown’s Broadway protected bike lanes, installed earlier this year, are a great example of the power of a road diet with PBLs. By converting a former four-lane speedway to two travel lanes, a turn lane, and protected lanes, the city transformed a hectic, dangerous stretch of Broadway into one that’s calmer and safer for pedestrians and drivers, as well as cyclists.