Tag Archives: complete streets

What’s really the issue with bike share?

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Chicago recently announced that it will be the next major American city this year (after New York) to receive a bike-sharing system, which I’ve posted about before (more coverage also over at Streetsblog). Stations for Citi Bike in New York have already been popping up in Brooklyn.

However, as is usually the case with anything involving bikes, there is the loud NIMBY minority, with disdain coming from both residents of “historic” neighborhoods (something Streetsblog NYC has been good at discussing), as well as street food vendors in Manhattan (as if there aren’t enough streets in Manhattan). There’s a New York Times piece about it.

So many have already elegantly debunked the illogic about taking some parking space for bike share, but it is worth pointing out that most people on residential streets do not pay for parking (or pay a small sum for the privilege of “permit parking”, a sum which does not even begin to cover the cost of the valuable space). But this is not even worth explaining to a driver who likes their free parking, because, taxes.

Hubway bike share in Boston on Boyslon St. That’s 17 public bikes in the space of about 4 cars. Credit: Cityphile.

We will hear more of the same thing in Chicago when Divvy stations start appearing. Some have already complained about the price. Yes, $22 million is a chunk of money to spend on some bikes. Or is it? We’re already spending $420 million on a downtown freeway interchange that will benefit only those who use it, or billions on a new freeway out in the suburbs. For some perspective, the cost of those two projects could fund Divvy for over 125 years.

In New York, there is opposition to having a bank’s name plastered all over the bikes and stations. This is something I can’t argue with; I do not like corporate sponsorship on “public” property. Citi is paying for the system, but there is opposition to the corporate branding. Capital Bikeshare in Washington, D.C. does not have corporate sponsorship plastered all over the bikes. Neither does Vélib’ in Paris; however, French advertiser JCDecaux has rights to some billboards in Paris in exchange for paying for the system. That’s a little sweeter of a deal – with tens of thousands of bikes and tons of users, there is no advertising on any of the bikes or stations, but it’s still privately funded.

While Divvy doesn’t have any corporate sponsorship now, Mayor Emanuel has said he hopes to in the future. I hope not. I personally would not like to ride around on a “BMO Harris Bike” or similar.

Finally, the typical “cyclists don’t follow rules” complaint comes up. A video like this or a 15-minute walk in most urban neighborhoods reveals that many drivers don’t either:

Most drivers “stop” at stop signs at the same speed as people on bikes do.

All petty disagreements aside, what I feel is the biggest issue with bike share is how safe riders will feel when using it. I consider myself a “confident” rider in that I’m not afraid to ride around on streets in the city, but I still get shaken up when riding to work in the morning and home at night. Just this Friday I was honked at by taxis and drivers, and witnessed several drivers yelling out their windows at other people riding their bikes downtown. One woman told a pair of cyclists riding side-by-side (on a 3-lane, one-way street) to “move over!” repeatedly while honking her horn.

This isn't enough room for drivers? Clark near Illinois. Credit: Google.

This isn’t enough room for drivers? Clark near Illinois. Credit: Google.

This kind of verbal and physical harassment (it’s “physical” when a driver uses their multi-ton car to threaten you) is not something that will make riders feel safer.

We need to seriously ramp up our bike lane construction. The only protected bike lanes in Chicago that will be near the Divvy stations this summer are going to be around downtown, and the only protected bike facilities aren’t much to call home about. More are scheduled to come downtown, but we don’t have a lot of options elsewhere. With the Participatory Budgeting process almost done in my ward, fellow Community Representatives in our streets & cycling group quickly found that the City and State makes it very difficult to put safe bike facilities on most streets. Where they can be put, they’re fragmented. For example, a new protected bike lane on Broadway from Leland to Montrose will be built in the coming months. This is only a distance of about 3 blocks! Many residents expressed interest in cycle facilities that would extend south on Broadway into Lakeview, but the street south of Montrose is too narrow (roughly 36′). This is too narrow for even sharrows. CDOT said it would be possible to build better bike facilities if parking were removed.

Yeah, right.

Broadway near Belle Plaine Ave is "too narrow" for sharrows, even though every street should technically have sharrows. Credit: Google.

Broadway near Belle Plaine Ave is “too narrow” for sharrows, even though every street should technically have sharrows. Credit: Google.

It’s too bad to see that so many people want better bike facilities, but our fragmented, shortsighted government won’t build them in a meaningful way. The same city that wants to  increase it’s number of cyclists is powerless to change the driving school curriculum or test, how hard it is to obtain a license, or to meaningfully change the behavior of drivers.

Safety for people on bikes comes in numbers. Hopefully, Divvy and other bike-share systems will get more people interested in riding a bike for practical urban transportation, and this will lead to a change in how we prioritize roadway funding and space allocation. Time will tell, and it’s usually kind: When’s the last time you heard someone complain about the Dearborn protected bike lane?

Why Do Buses Keep Bunching?

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It’s exasperating and anyone who even occasionally rides the bus knows the feeling. You’ve been waiting for the bus for at least ten minutes even though Google Maps told you it was supposed to come five minutes ago. In the distance, you finally see the twinkling lights that look like the bus. The bus pulls up to the stop, and right behind it is another bus, on the same route, going to the same destination. A third bus might even race up behind these two. The buses are bunched.

Surely, if the buses were running at the proper headway, you’d have been on one a few minutes before, and two or more buses going to the same place wouldn’t be leapfrogging each other. If you’re lucky, bunching is just a rare occurrence that comes with the low price of using public transportation. When its more than just an occurrence, it becomes a problem that can undermine a bus route.

Screen showing bus times for the northbound 49 bus at 6, 6, 6, and 7 minutes.

Sometimes, Buster (an app for CTA bus and train arrival times) shows the same bus time twice. But not here. 4 buses are approaching, all at the same time.

I’ve written before about my frustrations with the #22 Clark bus in Chicago. Quick background: The #22 bus constantly bunches and is one of the most-boarded bus routes in Chicago. It’s an unreliable route (I’ve waited as long as 40 minutes–during the day–for a #22 bus). I obtained bunching data from the CTA and have uploaded it to Google. Feel free to play with the data yourself. Here’s what I found: Continue reading →

How Push-to-Walk reduces the quality of walkable neighborhoods

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The downtown of my hometown could be classified as “walkable,” if only for a few blocks. This is one of Lake Geneva, WI’s main qualities and one of the reasons many tourists from the Chicago metro region and its environs go there for a visit. Downtown has small-town charm and history dating back to the US railroad era. I wrote about my last visit, and some information on the former train running to Lake Geneva (the old right-of-way is now a multi-use recreational trail).

The principal road, Main Street, is also State Route 50, meaning it is under WisDOT jurisdiction. This is generally not a good thing, since the state-level DOT never seems to really grasp the notion of anything except traffic movement. Luckily, nothing else can really be done to make traffic move faster through Lake Geneva’s downtown except remove angle parking on both sides, which would single-handedly destroy downtown business. There are two traffic signals within downtown, one at Main and Center, and one at Main and Broad (one block from each other). Formerly, they were not coordinated and operated on a timer. I had the timing down to a science when I was in high school and worked downtown. In the summer tourist season, traffic was awful: it could take as long as 20 minutes just to move along a 5-block stretch. The signals weren’t timed for traffic movement.


Main St and Broad, Lake Geneva, WI. View Larger Map

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the City Council thought so. Just recently, new “high-tech” signals were introduced. I don’t see them as an upgrade for two reasons:

  1. There are new “push to cross” buttons at all crosswalks.”
  2. They are synchronized for maximum traffic flow.
    Continue reading →

Let’s build better residential streets

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Too many of Chicago’s residential streets are wide, one-way thoroughfares that are unsuitable for our neighborhoods. 14-foot streets are only designed to handle one car in one direction at a time give way for fast-moving traffic on quiet streets.

Hermitage Avenue looking south from Wilson Avenue, Chicago. Credit: Shaun Jacobsen.

Hermitage Avenue looking south from Wilson Avenue, Chicago. Credit: Shaun Jacobsen.

Hermitage Ave, pictured above, is really wide – and also a one-way street. There are no speed bumps along this two-block stretch from Wilson Ave to Montrose Ave, meaning many (but not all) drivers take the nearly-18 foot lane at a high speed, barely stopping at stop signs.

Something that bothers me is “sharrows” or even painted bike lanes on major streets. I do not always feel safe riding a bike on busy streets like Clark, Montrose, or even Damen. I definitely do not feel safe on streets like Irving Park (no bike lane), Lawrence, or Lincoln (with some bike lanes). Often, though, this is where the powers that be decides bike lanes (or worse – “shared lanes“) are best placed. Residential streets just a block or two away from major streets are often quieter and safer, but dead-end or are plagued with stop signs. Vehicles have major streets for fast travel through the City, but they’re often only fast and safe for vehicles. There are few thoroughfares that cross so many neighborhoods that are safe for people on bicycles.

I wrote a while ago about “complete residential streets,” which I think are a good way to get more people using a bicycle as a form of transportation. It’s hard to get busier streets narrowed or to move the parking away from the curb in order to create protected lanes. Even when it’s done, drivers still block the lane, water collects (and could freeze in winter), or there’s just too many conflict points at large intersections. It still makes people nervous.

So why not take some of the residential streets adjacent to these major streets and make them into priority biking streets? It won’t work everywhere – many of these streets don’t run for more than a few blocks – but it would work in many places and could create an excellent network of streets that are very safe for biking and are still close to everywhere people need to go. Traffic calming measures would be implemented to slow down traffic and make it easier for bike traffic to flow through, much in the same way that streets like Broadway speed up automobile traffic and make traveling easy. What’s more, according to research at UC-San Diego, people riding bikes on busy streets may be inhaling a lot of unhealthy pollutants — and biking just a block away from a major street could reduce the health risk of busy streets. This is where retrofitting our residential streets would create several benefits.

Better Residential StreetsThe only major modification is moving the curb (in this case, on the right side) in by two feet to accommodate the bike lane. On streets that are wide enough, this may not even be necessary to maintain a 10′ driving lane. This was to ensure that parking could be maintained on both sides of the street and the roadway would still be wide enough for emergency vehicles. In the event that the curb could not be cut (because of utilities or trees, for example), the bike lane could be elevated to the same height as the sidewalk instead.

When possible, traffic circles at intersections of two residential streets would ensure that traffic moves cautiously through the intersection. Raised sidewalks and curb bump-outs would elevate pedestrians. At intersections of a residential street and a secondary street (like Wilson Ave), four-way stops with a raised intersection would ensure that cars slow down before continuing. And at intersections of a residential street and major street (like Irving Park), a traffic signal would feature a bike signal – giving people on bikes their own chance to go. During periods of rain or snow, pedestrians and people on bikes could get slightly higher priority at these lights (extending a green using pavement sensors, for example).

Building a world-class bicycle network should include features that make users feel comfortable. Creating more equitable streets is the most important goal. In order to get more people using bicycles as transportation, the environment has to be comfortable and safe. It’s politically difficult to make our major streets more equitable (make no mistake, opposition about lost parking spaces would surface on residential streets, too), so why not start with residential streets that are already low-traffic and shouldn’t have automobile traffic moving more than a few blocks in the first place?

Redesigning North Avenue

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Yesterday I was walking down North Avenue (near Clybourn Avenue and Halsted Street) in Chicago. Something I’ve noticed before, not only when walking but also on the rare occasion where I’ve driven, is that North Avenue is a very narrow, fast street with narrow sidewalks:

Narrow sidewalk near storefronts on North Avenue. Credit: Shaun Jacobsen.

Narrow sidewalk near storefronts on North Avenue. Credit: Shaun Jacobsen.

There are at least 50 stores/restaurants along/just off of North Avenue. Many of the storefronts are recessed back from the sidewalk (either to create a small plaza or because there is a parking lot). Kudos to the few stores that decided to recess their stores to create a plaza/wider walkway, as the sidewalks are very narrow and the existing street furniture (where it actually exists) doesn’t do much to make pedestrians feel safe from fast-moving traffic on North Avenue.

Two-stage crossing at North Avenue and Clybourn Avenue. Credit: Shaun Jacobsen.

Two-stage crossing at North Avenue and Clybourn Avenue. Credit: Shaun Jacobsen.

The traffic situation is a mess. Not even because there’s too much of it or a high average daily traffic count, but because there are too many opportunities for cars to exit/enter parking lots/garages along the street. The intersection of diagonal Clybourn Avenue at North Avenue (pictured above) makes crossing Clybourn on the southern end of North difficult.

Riding a bike on North would be difficult and I would probably not attempt it. But North is a perfect street to get from neighborhoods west of the Kennedy Expressway (Wicker Park, Humboldt Park, etc.) to this neighborhood and the Lakefront [trail]. The only other direct way to get there is the #72 CTA bus, which often gets stuck in the traffic, or Division Street (1/2 mile south), which is also full of fast-moving traffic.

How could we make North Avenue more friendly to pedestrians, people on bikes, and those arriving by public transportation?

North Avenue is not proposed to be any sort of bicycle-friendly street in the recently-released Chicago Streets for Cycling 2020 plan. It is an arterial, high-speed street that cuts through at least three neighborhoods with lots of people. What I’m proposing is not part of any existing plan, it would certainly be difficult and costly to implement, but ideas start somewhere, and aren’t always perfect, nor cost-effective, nor publicly appealing the first time around. Take a look anyway:

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