Grid Bits: Red Line south closure, Bombardier trains under construction, universal fare card

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Photo of a Metra train by Sam Dickey. 

There are 5 stories from 8 sources in this edition of Grid Bits, all about transit.

CTA Red Line south track renewal project

The Chicago Transit Authority’s Red Line south project to shut down 9 Red Line stations (Cermak-Chinatown to 95th) for five months in 2013 to replace 100% of track is generating uninformed controversy. The CTA will be holding at least 5 meetings across the south side to meet one-on-one with neighbors and community groups. The first meeting was Monday; the second meeting is tonight.

Coverage and commentary of the Red Line south project:

The CTA has posted an extremely detailed webpage dedicated to informing people about the project’s goals, alternative service, and why it chose to avoid a 4-year-long weekend-only shutdown to complete the same work.

Continue reading Grid Bits: Red Line south closure, Bombardier trains under construction, universal fare card

Talk, Forrest, talk! The CTA chief responds to our transit questions

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Steven and Forrest Claypool.

Yesterday the Chicago Transit Authority gave a handful of transportation bloggers the opportunity to meet with CTA President Forrest Claypool at the agency’s headquarters and ask him about the state of the agency and its future projects. Steven and I were joined by our colleagues Patrick Barry, filling in for Kevin O’Neil from CTA Tattler, and Kevin Zolkiewicz from Chicago Bus, who also contributes to Grid Chicago.

During the freewheeling 45-minute discussion Mr. Claypool patiently answered any and all of our queries about the transit authority’s sometimes controversial decisions. He was particularly candid about the upcoming Jeffery Corridor Bus Rapid Transit initiative, volunteering his opinion that this pilot project isn’t really bus rapid transit, but rather a step in the right direction. Here are a few of Steven’s and my questions and Mr. Claypool’s responses.

Continue reading Talk, Forrest, talk! The CTA chief responds to our transit questions

Take back the bike lane

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Take it back. The bike lane that is. Take it back from those who park in it, put their valet signs in it, park valet cars in it, pickup and drop off passengers in it, or generally illegally block the bike lane, forcing cyclists to merge into faster moving traffic to avoid it.

Two weeks ago, feeling sick and tired of the disrespect people have for facilities the City of Chicago and its funding partners (mainly the federal government) have built for the exclusive use of people riding bicycles, I confronted three people about their parking in the bike lane.

Continue reading Take back the bike lane

Bike Chicago’s protest of Alta Bicycle Share winning bike sharing contract

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An example bicycle from Public Bike Share Co. Click on the image to read the photographer’s short review of his trip. Photo by Kevin Zolkiewicz. We’ll publish a review of bicycling in Toronto later this week. 

The Chicago Office of the Inspector General is currently investigating the procurement process for the bike sharing RFP that selected Alta Bicycle Share, Inc., and its partner, Public Bike Share Co., as the winner bidder to launch a bike sharing program in the city with 4,000 bikes and 400 kiosks.

In March, Josh Squire, the president of Bike Chicago (a sponsor of this blog through Bike and Park), called the selection process “tainted”. In April he sent Grid Chicago a summary of the allegations and a detailed timeline of evidence supporting them. We’re posting it now because we’ve received a couple inquiries about the procurement process that this could help answer.

We will contact the Inspector General’s office soon to get an update on the investigation. The Chicago Department of Transportation and its commissioner Gabe Klein have made two separate comments to Grid Chicago about the investigation: at MBAC, and at Bike to Work Day Rally.

Download the email (.pdf).

Follow the bike sharing tag to read all of our coverage.

Wells Street buffered bike lane construction began today (photos)

Several #bikeCHI tweeters noticed in the past few days that existing bike lane stripes on Wells Street had been ground out (probably last Friday). Today, new bike lane striping was installed south of Chicago Avenue, to at least Ohio Street, in the River North neighborhood.

Photos are from Adam Herstein. They start at the north end of the project and move south (in the direction of travel). Wells Street is one-way south of Erie Street (until Congress Parkway) and two-way north of Erie Street.

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Wells and Superior Streets. 

Continue reading Wells Street buffered bike lane construction began today (photos)

My first time driving a hybrid vehicle from I-GO Car Sharing

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On Saturday I needed to pick up a bunch of houseplants from a home improvement store and it seemed like it would be a hassle to carry them safely on my Fresh Air bicycle trailer. Also, after a lot of procrastinating, I recently got my Chicago Card Plus, which provides access to the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and I-GO Car Sharing, replaced after the old one cracked and stopped functioning months ago. So this seemed like a good opportunity to try out my new card by checking out a vehicle from I-GO, the nonprofit service operated by the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

When I logged onto the I-GO website, I noticed that there were a couple of locations near my home in Logan Square with standard Toyota Prius hybrid cars. I-GO also offers plug-in electric hybrid Priuses, which they say can get 100 mile-per-gallon for trips under forty miles. This results in up to two-thirds lower fuel costs and emissions than the standard Prius, I-GO says, but currently all of the plug-in hybrids are located downtown. The service also recently added several Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan LEAF electric cars to their fleet.

Continue reading My first time driving a hybrid vehicle from I-GO Car Sharing