The Chainlink

What's your 2014 agenda for the Chicago Department of Transportation?

The Active Transportation Alliance is meeting soon with the Chicago Department of Transportation’s new Commissioner, Rebekah Scheinfeld, and sharing our recommendations for CDOT’s priorities in the new year.

We’d love to hear what you think should be on CDOT’s to-do list for biking, walking and transit in the coming year. Please share your ideas.

Active Trans’ 2014 priority list so far includes goals like:

  • Expand the Divvy bike sharing program across the city into neighborhoods currently without stations.
  • Connect gaps that exist between bike lanes.
  • Build next-generation protected bike lanes with concrete curbs and other “hardscaping”; build more Neighborhood Greenways
  • Fix faded paint lines, standing water, potholes and rough spots where utility cuts occurred in bike lanes and unmarked bike routes.
  • Spearhead an ordinance or other policy change to increase secure bike parking in high-occupancy buildings.
  • Retrofit the most dangerous intersections and street crossings.
  • Secure a budget line item for a dedicated Pedestrian Infrastructure and Safety Fund to fix the sidewalk network and make other pedestrian improvements.
  • Complete final designs for the Ashland rapid transit line.
  • Launch a ward-based, online crash database.
  • Launch the Central Loop Bus Rapid Transit service.

Our draft list doesn’t stop there. In addition to these recommendations, we would love to hear from you and share some of your great ideas with CDOT. 

Although CTA and Metra are the lead transit agencies, we’re including transit ideas because CDOT plays an important role in creating street designs that accommodate transit vehicles and access to transit.

We'll compile and share your input with CDOT and use your ideas to help guide our work in 2014.

And please join the fight for better biking, walking and transit by becoming a member of the Active Transportation Alliance today. Your membership supports programs and initiatives that will make th...

Ron Burke, 

Executive Director 

Active Transportation Alliance

Views: 475

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Joe Guzzardo on January 27, 2014 at 5:05pm

I'd like to see an ordinance, similar to what they have in New York City, requiring parking garages (particularly downtown), to offer bicycle parking. Not many downtown buildings have such facilities. I hate having to park my bike outside, in full view of passers by, being vulnerable to theft or vandalism. 

Permalink Reply by David Altenburg on January 27, 2014 at 10:29pm

I really like the posted list. 

I'd also like to see green waves (traffic light timings) on major bike routes - especially Milwaukee Ave. 

The crash database sounds like a good idea, but what do you mean by ward-based? I understand the desire to be able to highlight issues to specific alderman, but it seems that the fragmentation of the ward map would hide crash patterns. 

Permalink Reply by Active Transportation Alliance on January 30, 2014 at 11:36am

Clp, we want to see the city set aside a fund to replace and/or repair sidewalks that need fixing across the city. The fund would also pay for street infrastructure such as pedestrian refuge islands, ped countdown timers, and bump-outs that are intended to specifically improve safety and conditions for people walking in the city.   

David, about the crash database, we want an online database that provides city-wide crash trends as well as ward crash data. We believe that having ward-based crash data is critical  to educate aldermen (on bike/ped safety issues), support residents who advocate for street improvement in their neighborhood and leverage local funding sources like aldermanic menu funds. The database idea is already in CDOT’s Pedestrian Plan, p 51. They don’t say “ward-based,” but we feel that would be a useful element:   http://chicagopedestrianplan.org/

Andres Alvear, Active Trans 

Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on January 30, 2014 at 12:28pm

I get that the list is mostly not specific to any geographic area. But we should focus on getting the spokes  fully in place before we move on to improving the existing network of bike infrastructure.  There is a huge gap in the network for anyone wishing to ride between the southwest side and the loop. Specifically I'm talking about the Archer corridor (west of Throop where the current bike lanes end).

Lots of people ride on Archer as the alternatives are either hugely out of the way, or on streets that are as bike-hostile as Archer itself, or even worse (just pick any N/S street west of Western that crosses both the canal and the expressway and imagine riding that stretch... yikes!). There is no practical way to avoid the multi-modal yards, I 55, Midway Airport or the Ship and Sanitary Canal without riding on Archer. But Archer is a 4 to 6 lane mess that is treated as a highway in the city with numerous choke-points where the outside lanes disappear and lots of missing left turn lanes. Motor vehicle traffic routinely ignores the speed limit and disregards crosswalks. Archer needs a major lane reconfiguration from Harlem to Canal. It needs to be put on a pretty huge diet.

Permalink Reply by Alex Z on January 30, 2014 at 12:38pm

+1

Tony Adams 7 mi said:

I get that the list is mostly not specific to any geographic area. But we should focus on getting the spokes  fully in place before we move on to improving the existing network of bike infrastructure.  There is a huge gap in the network for anyone wishing to ride between the southwest side and the loop. Specifically I'm talking about the Archer corridor (west of Throop where the current bike lanes end).

Lots of people ride on Archer as the alternatives are either hugely out of the way, or on streets that are as bike-hostile as Archer itself, or even worse (just pick any N/S street west of Western that crosses both the canal and the expressway and imagine riding that stretch... yikes!). There is no practical way to avoid the multi-modal yards, I 55, Midway Airport or the Ship and Sanitary Canal without riding on Archer. But Archer is a 4 to 6 lane mess that is treated as a highway in the city with numerous choke-points where the outside lanes disappear and lots of missing left turn lanes. Motor vehicle traffic routinely ignores the speed limit and disregards crosswalks. Archer needs a major lane reconfiguration from Harlem to Canal. It needs to be put on a pretty huge diet.

Permalink Reply by Adam Herstein on January 30, 2014 at 4:55pm

Can we add "better plowing of bike lanes and PBLs" to the list? I'm sick of riding in bike lanes that essentially become snow storage areas after major snow events.

Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on January 31, 2014 at 10:55am

+1

It would be great to know if the appalling situation in the bike lanes (and the rush hour parking lanes which serve as defacto bike lanes) is the result of a new City policy or if it was just a result of a botched/inadequate plowing and then not being able to keep up with a record amount of snow combined with long stretches of below freezing temps.

Adam Herstein (5.5 mi) said:

Can we add "better plowing of bike lanes and PBLs" to the list? I'm sick of riding in bike lanes that essentially become snow storage areas after major snow events.

Permalink Reply by Davo on January 31, 2014 at 10:59am

And why cars have not been towed on the so called snow routes. I have seen cars that obviously have not been moved for days after any major snow. The rest of the lane is plowed but swoops out around the car. Seems like a good way to generate some revenue.



Tony Adams 7 mi said:

+1

It would be great to know if the appalling situation in the bike lanes (and the rush hour parking lanes which serve as defacto bike lanes) is the result of a new City policy or if it was just a result of a botched/inadequate plowing and then not being able to keep up with a record amount of snow combined with long stretches of below freezing temps.

Adam Herstein (5.5 mi) said:

Can we add "better plowing of bike lanes and PBLs" to the list? I'm sick of riding in bike lanes that essentially become snow storage areas after major snow events.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on January 31, 2014 at 11:51am

Sounds great to me. In the 19th ward, we have miles of sidewalks in bad condition. Some of that is in isolated chunks (1 or 2 bad squares). In some places, most of a block is bad, with heaved up and/or broken squares, big chunks of concrete missing, etc.  Ped refuge islands would be very welcome on Western, which is a nightmare for peds in its current state.  Refuge islands could also be helpful to cyclists.

Active Transportation Alliance said:

Clp, we want to see the city set aside a fund to replace and/or repair sidewalks that need fixing across the city. The fund would also pay for street infrastructure such as pedestrian refuge islands, ped countdown timers, and bump-outs that are intended to specifically improve safety and conditions for people walking in the city.   

David, about the crash database, we want an online database that provides city-wide crash trends as well as ward crash data. We believe that having ward-based crash data is critical  to educate aldermen (on bike/ped safety issues), support residents who advocate for street improvement in their neighborhood and leverage local funding sources like aldermanic menu funds. The database idea is already in CDOT’s Pedestrian Plan, p 51. They don’t say “ward-based,” but we feel that would be a useful element:   http://chicagopedestrianplan.org/

Andres Alvear, Active Trans 

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on January 31, 2014 at 12:26pm

What I've put together is that we're slipping back into the 80s where the bulk of city resources are apportioned to the wealthiest areas.  Lincoln Park/Lakeview cyclists don't seem to have any idea what we keep complaining about here.  
 
Tony Adams 7 mi said:

+1

It would be great to know if the appalling situation in the bike lanes (and the rush hour parking lanes which serve as defacto bike lanes) is the result of a new City policy or if it was just a result of a botched/inadequate plowing and then not being able to keep up with a record amount of snow combined with long stretches of below freezing temps.

Adam Herstein (5.5 mi) said:

Can we add "better plowing of bike lanes and PBLs" to the list? I'm sick of riding in bike lanes that essentially become snow storage areas after major snow events.

Permalink Reply by Crazy David 84 Furlongs on January 31, 2014 at 1:22pm

I would love to see:

1.  The building of a real and effective set of Greenways (rather than the clusterf**k that is the Berteau Greenway) as good alternatives to the major east west and north south arterials.

2.   Termination of the badly thought out Ashland BRT and the building of a real and effective set of North South Bike lanes.... perhaps a set of fully protected lanes down the MIDDLE of Ashland.

3.  Idaho Stops for Bicycles at Stop Signs

4.   Better Bicycle policies on METRA

5.  Elimination of the "bike ban" policy on the CTA during "popular" days

6.  Expand Divvy to install stations out west to at least cover the blue line.

Permalink Reply by Davo on January 31, 2014 at 3:09pm

A Damen green line stop.

RSS

Groups

© 2008-2016   The Chainlink Community, L.L.C.   Powered by

Disclaimer  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service