Bike boxes, curb bump outs and more planned for Lincoln and Halsted near Children's Memorial site

by Michelle Stenzel

The final plans for the Children's Memorial site have been released and approved by the city's Chicago Plan Commission. All documents are available for viewing via links provided on Alderman Michele Smith's website. I've reviewed them and will highlight some of the positive changes that are planned for biking and walking.

BIKEWAYS

The documents include plans for continuous bike lanes on Halsted and Lincoln along the project site. Below is a document included in the plans, over which I've added green highlighting to make the lanes more visible. 

McCaffrey Interests' Planned Development exhibit, with my green highlighting added.

A few things to note: 

How many people in Lincoln Park bike to work? Take transit? Live car-free?

by Michelle Stenzel

The 2010 Census produced a lot of data that has been made public, but it's often not very useful to ordinary citizens until someone overlays the numbers onto a map, and makes it easy for people to see the data come to life. We're fortunate that Shaun Jacobsen of Transitized has recently done just that, with the census data on how Chicagoans commute to work.

You can access the citywide map at this link directly, and read Shaun's blog entry here. 

Screen shot of the Chicago Commute Mode Map by Shaun Jacobsen of Transitized.com

When you first open the map, it shows what the dominant mode of transportation is for each census tract, whether it's drive alone, carpool, transit, walk, bike, or telecommute. The blue tracts mean that transit is the dominant mode (not necessarily the majority, just the mode with the highest percent) of commuting for those residents, while red is drive alone, and purple is walking. You can hover over any of the tracts to get detailed data on that tract. You can also choose different layers to view by clicking on the icon on the upper left that looks like a stack of papers.  (More -->)