West Loop

After a bike crash was inadvertently captured by a news crew, police ticketed the cyclist for blowing a red. But closer examination shows the cabbie may have disregarded his signal as well.

Talk about a missed opportunity.

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.

[This piece also runs in Checkerboard City, John's column in Newcity magazine, which hits the street in print on Wednesday evenings.]

When it comes to parking management in Chicago, there have been a couple of encouraging developments recently. In September, City Council passed a beefed-up revision of the transit-oriented development ordinance, which makes it easier than ever to build dense, parking-lite developments near train stations. And, recently, Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) made some very sensible statements about the fact that downtown buildings shouldn't have tons of car spaces.

As the old saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

The Chicago Department of Transportation has taken advantage of recent warm spells to do some late-year bikeway construction. In addition to new bikeways on Lincoln, the department recently striped buffered bike lanes on Halsted, between Fulton and Erie in the West Loop and River West.

Yesterday Blue Cross spokesman Michael Deering told me about how the Central Loop Bus Rapid Transit project will make it faster and easier for hundreds of the corporation’s employees to access it downtown headquarters. This morning I spoke with Peter Vilim, co-chair of the real estate investment firm Waterton Associates, about why his company supports BRT.

A snowy neckdown -- or "sneckdown" -- is that place in the roadway where the snow sticks around because no one drives over it. Sneckdowns show where there's too much asphalt that could easily be claimed for pedestrian space and traffic calming.