Grid Shots: River and bridge edition

I’m in Richmond, Virginia, currently, biking up and down these dang HILLS. I’ll have a post up later this week about bike culture here (this is my first time in this region of the country). So this Grid Shots about bridges and the river is super short, with little commentary. Feel free to add your own captions in the comments – I’ve numbered the photos for easy reference.

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Photo 1 by Eric Rogers. 

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Photo 2 by Michelle Stenzel.  Continue reading Grid Shots: River and bridge edition

Upcoming events for May and June

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Photo of Chicagoan bicycling across the Kinzie Street bridge by John Iwanski. 

This is your sustainable transportation upcoming events calendar, with 20 events. You can subscribe to our events calendar via Google Calendar.

May

Monday, May 28 is the extended deadline for the Bike Video PSA. The competition, sponsored by Goose Island, Bike Chicago (Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events), Bicycle Film Festival, and The Chainlink, began in early May. Read our earlier post.

Tuesday, May 29 is the Wolf Point skyscraper development meeting, a project that intends to bring over 1,000 car parking spaces to an already congested area. The meeting, while not required by any law or policy, is being called by 42nd Ward Alderman Reilly. “The Hines Development Team will present their proposed plan for the site; discuss their Traffic Study (commissioned at my request); and answer your questions about the Proposal.”

Holiday Inn, Wolf Point Ballroom
350 West Mart Center Drive
Chicago, IL Continue reading Upcoming events for May and June

CDOT unveils draft Streets for Cycling plan, but there’s still time for input

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On Tuesday at the first of several community input meetings before the Streets for Cycling 2020 plan is finalized, the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) unveiled a draft map of locations for the 110 miles of protected bike lanes (PBLs) and 40 miles of buffered lanes to be built during Rahm Emanuel’s first term.

However, the meeting focused on a new concept, the Citywide 2020 Network, a comprehensive plan for 640 miles of bikeways to be created over the next eight years – more details on this in a minute. CDOT also unveiled a draft map of this larger network at the event, held at the Copernicus Center, 5216 W. Lawrence in Jefferson Park.

Although the Streets for Cycling community input process is nearly complete, there’s still time to provide feedback before the final plan is unveiled at the Bike to Work rally on Friday, June 15. After you finish reading this post, take some time to study the two maps. If you have suggested edits to the proposed bikeway locations, see the bottom of the post for several ways you can make your voice heard.

Continue reading CDOT unveils draft Streets for Cycling plan, but there’s still time for input

Quickly: Union Station Master Plan study released today at breakfast on vintage train

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Paul Nowicki, assistant vice president of government and policy at BNSF and MPC board member, speaks before breakfast on one of his company’s executive inspection trains. Photos by Ryan Griffin-Stegink, courtesy of Metropolitan Planning Council.

I had breakfast this morning with planning and railroad industry folks on a BNSF Railway train built a few decades ago to celebrate the release of the Chicago Department of Transportation’s Union Station Master Plan Study. The breakfast was hosted by BNSF (operator of the Metra BNSF Railway to Aurora, Illinois) and Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC), one of the plan’s many partners.

Download the entire study (6 MB .pdf), or view it in parts on the Master Plan’s official website. Read MPC’s blog about the project. Continue reading Quickly: Union Station Master Plan study released today at breakfast on vintage train

Put Chicago on the path to an electrified Metra

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Ed. note: Roland Solinski is a graduate student of architecture at Tulane University. “I am a Chicagoan by birth and the city runs in my blood. I’m fascinated by all aspects of urban design and urban systems, but especially transit systems and public space.” Photo is of a southbound Metra Electric train. 

In November of 2010, the Chicago Tribune published an article that shocked Metra commuters. In it, Tribune reporters revealed that massive quantities of diesel exhaust were hanging in the air on platforms at Union Station and Ogilvie Transportation Center. Worse, the atmosphere inside each railcar contained the same exhaust at even higher concentrations – 72 times that of a normal city street.

In numerous other cities, commuters do not need to worry about harmful exhaust fumes, because their trains run off of electric power. In fact, many cities installed rail electrification systems at the turn of the last century specifically to eliminate toxic smoke emissions, including the Illinois Central’s line right here in Chicago, now called Metra Electric. Continue reading Put Chicago on the path to an electrified Metra

Reactions to CDOT’s Chicago Forward Action Agenda vary

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Transit, safety, and congestion make up parts of the Action Agenda. 

Below are excerpts from others’ reactions to the Chicago Department of Transportation’s two-year plan, the Chicago Forward Action Agenda.

Ryan Richter, writing for Transport Nexus:

I think the very first performance measure, to increase activity, sales revenue, and occupancy rates in neighborhood commercial districts, is a fantastic example of breaking out of the silo. This is a problem that will have to be addressed city-wide through multiple agencies. Recognizing that streets can “add value”  to the neighborhoods means that you begin looking at streets in “complete” terms, as in how can a street serve multiple modes simultaneously?

Continue reading Reactions to CDOT’s Chicago Forward Action Agenda vary