The Chainlink

New bike lanes, improvements coming to Chicago Ave. and Sheridan Rd. in Evanston

This is good news:

http://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2016/10/update-on-sheridan-roa...

-Conventional bike lanes added to Chicago Ave. between David and Sheridan

-Widening of Sheridan between Chicago and Lincoln to add room for bus pullouts and concrete-protected two-way protected cycle track on the east side of Sheridan with cycle signals

-Conventional (buffered?) bike lanes added to Sheridan from Lincoln to Wilmetter border, road diet from four lanes to three.

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I saw this other article this morning:

http://evanstonnow.com/story/public-safety/bill-smith/2016-10-14/76...

It includes a cross section view of the proposed changes. No bike lane dimensions were given, but since they plan to keep four travel lanes, I doubt the bike lane will be very wide, even considering that they probably plan to narrow the sidewalk in front of campus. I'd prefer a scheme similar to Wilmette, where they have two travel lanes, a left turn lane in the middle, and one-way bike lanes on both sides. A big chunk of the time, the center lane isn't usable for through traffic, being blocked by cars turning left. By isolating the left turn lane from through traffic, my guess is the throughput will be about the same as it is today.

Here's a Sheridan Road image just north of the Baha'i temple. The center section where the street name is printed is a continuous left-turn lane. I'm not aware of any obvious problems with Wilmette's setup.

The article did say that the two-way bike lane would be a total of eight feet wide. I am not sure why they are proposing to keep four lanes on that stretch of Sheridan, particularly since it is only four lanes for a short distance, and is or will be two lanes with a turn lane from about Sheridan Place through the rest of Evanston. And, like you, I don't see where they can get the extra width (especially with the bus pullouts, which are a good idea) except from the sidewalk. It is a wide sidewalk, but should be. 

I love Wilmette's reconfiguration of their section of Sheridan.

I agree that the sidewalks along the Northwestern section should remain wide, because they carry so much ped traffic.

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