Come give feedback on the Lincoln Avenue corridor!

by Michelle Stenzel

Lincoln Avenue in Lincoln Park: Love it? Hate it? Meh? Now's your chance to share your opinions about what's working and what's not, and to provide ideas for improving that street.

Artwork like this mosaic adds an element of interest to Lincoln Avenue sidewalks. (Photo: Bike Walk Lincoln Park)

The Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce is working on crafting a plan to guide improvements to Lincoln Avenue from Webster to Diversey. This important Lincoln Park corridor will be undergoing significant changes in the next few years, given the upcoming redevelopment at the Children's Memorial site and other large construction projects, so it's a good time to assess the street's assets and liabilities. They're seeking feedback about the public way conditions, transportation options, mix of businesses, the state of the buildings, and more. (continues -->)

Lincoln Avenue bike lane improvements are coming

by Michelle Stenzel

Lincoln Avenue has long been a popular bicycling route within Lincoln Park because it provides a direct southeast path toward the city center, leads to DePaul University, and it has bustling commercial areas along much of its length. Unfortunately, the asphalt has been in terrible disrepair for years, with enormous cracks and potholes that often made the bike lanes virtually useless. 

Lincoln Avenue bike lane and crosswalk near Montana Street. (Photo: Bike Walk Lincoln Park)

Fortunately, Alderman Michele Smith announced this week that the long wait is coming to an end: Most of Lincoln will be resurfaced over the next few weeks.

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: 

Our thoughts on the new Children's Memorial site plan

by Michelle Stenzel

A new proposed plan has been released for redevelopment of the Children's Memorial Hospital site, and we recently reviewed the proposal to evaluate its design in terms of walking, biking, transit and public spaces. It's a large site with many facets to the plan, and you should review the PDF of the presentation, which you can download from Ald. Michele Smith's web page, or attend the community presentation on Tuesday evening (January 14, 6:30 PM at DePaul Student Center). 

View of the new Children's Memorial proposal toward the southeast, with Lincoln Avenue on the right.
(All images in the post are from McCaffrey Interests presentation PDF unless otherwise noted)

The design of all the new buildings looks very nice! The external design of the new buildings is bright, airy, clean and modern. The plans call for preservation of historic buildings worth preserving, and lots of retail right where it's needed. (More -->)

Show up and speak up for better bicycling on local IDOT streets

by Michelle Stenzel

This Thursday afternoon, Illinois Department of Transportation representatives will be at the Thompson Center in the Loop to gather input for the state's very first bicycle plan, and it's important that you make an effort to drop by. I know what you're thinking: 1/ Irrelevant: I never ride my bike outside the city and therefore don't have any stake in what goes on in the suburbs and downstate in terms of bike lanes and 2/ Useless and boring! 

On the first point: This does affect every person who rides a bike in the city. Perhaps you don't know that many of our streets are under the jurisdiction of IDOT. The agency's decisions about their design and management indeed have direct impact on whether Chicago's streets become more livable and people-oriented, or whether they remain just for the sole purpose of moving motor vehicles through at high volumes and high speeds. (For example, read background on how IDOT is currently not allowing protected bike lanes, even on streets with plenty of room for them.)

Six lanes for motor vehicles and nothing for bicyclists on the IDOT-jurisdiction North Avenue, at Larrabee.
(Photo: Bike Walk Lincoln Park)

New Divvy stations are popping up everywhere

by Michelle Stenzel

Chicago's Divvy bike sharing system has been up and running now for eight weeks. At first there were only 75 stations installed, but the Divvy crew are installing more every day, and currently there are more than 160 in use citywide, with a goal of 300 stations by summer's end on September 22, 2013.

Those of us in Lincoln Park are lucky to have had a number of stations since the launch, and you may have noticed new ones popping up in the neighborhood over the past weeks. I went around and snapped pictures of a few of them.

One of the new stations is at the busy corner of Clark/Diversey/Broadway. This 11-dock station is on Diversey, on the sidewalk next to Walgreen's. This is a very busy shopping area, and I'm sure this will be a popular station for picking up or dropping off bikes. 

The Divvy bikes at Clark and Diversey are ready to roll. (Photo: Bike Walk Lincoln Park)

More --->

Found: Scores of potholes in the bike lanes

by Michelle Stenzel

We held our first annual Bike Lane Potholepalooza yesterday! It took a little over two hours for Michael Reynolds, Andrew Herman and I to ride up and down Wells, Lincoln, Armitage, Halsted and Clark spotting the craters that pose a danger to bicyclists. 

A notoriously bad stretch of bike lane potholes on Lincoln Avenue, north of Armitage.
(Photo: Bike Walk Lincoln Park)

So much work to be done...

by Michelle Stenzel

There are good things happening in Chicago for people walking and biking, which we've covered in prior posts. Just this week, the city released its first-ever Pedestrian Plan, an encouraging document I'll try to highlight in a separate post. 

But this weekend, honestly, walking and riding my bike around Lincoln Park and beyond, it was just  depressing to see how far we have to go. The state of the crosswalk stripings nearly everywhere is horrendous. Sidewalks are tiny slivers of pavement. There are potholes on main streets and side streets. Where there are bike lanes, they end at every intersection. On LaSalle Street, I saw four cars parked in a No Parking/Tow Zone/bus stop area, completely blocking the curb cuts for two crosswalks. No tickets on their windshields, and I don't think the owners had any fear of actually getting towed. Pedestrians, be damned.

There are good intentions in our current administration, but there's so much work to be done. I certainly don't envy them their task of organizing the effort to fix, maintain, and right-size our streets.

I rounded up some pictures I've taken over the last month or two to illustrate.

Green City market vendor truck blocking the pedestrian crosswalk on Clark at Menomonee.  It's already a horrible place to cross, and this only makes it more dangerous.

Pedestrian signs update: New locations, and some wear and tear

by Michelle Stenzel

More "Stop for Pedestrian" signs have been placed in Lincoln Park, and they're working well. From my observations at various installations over the past few weeks, it seems that most drivers are much more likely to drive slower as they approach, and stop when needed to allow pedestrians to cross. Sure, there are always the occasional drivers who have no problem buzzing past people in the crosswalk in spite of the signs, but that's now the exception.

There are now five signs at uncontrolled intersections (where there is no stop sign nor stop light) on Clark, between Fullerton and Diversey. These crosswalks see a very high volume of people crossing due to the wonderful variety of shops and restaurants on both sides of Clark.

More after the jump!

Thankful for positive changes favoring walking and bicycling

We have more positive changes to report for people walking and bicycling in Lincoln Park!

New pedestrian crosswalk at North Avenue and Orchard Street. (Photo: Bike Walk Lincoln Park)

NEW PEDESTRIAN ISLAND AT NORTH AND ORCHARD

A new pedestrian crosswalk has been installed on North Avenue at Orchard Street. The crosswalk not only has big zebra stripes, but two pedestrian islands to provide walkers a safe haven when crossing. This is a huge upgrade from two strips of yellow paint inches apart that was the prior "safe haven".

Intended speeds vs. design speeds of Chicago's streets

We mentioned in a prior post the “design speed” of a street, which is sometimes different from the intended or posted speed limit. The way a street is configured, either intentionally or not, has the effect of “telling” a driver how fast or slow to proceed. 

What works well for streets in Death Valley National Park doesn't necessarily translate well to Chicago.
(Photo: Bike Walk Lincoln Park)

Elements that make drivers comfortable going fast are: straight sight lines, wide lanes, multiple lanes of traffic going in the same direction, long distances between crosswalks/stop signs/stoplights, and a wide shoulder or lack of obstacles the driver would hit if they suddenly had to make a defensive move like swerving out of their lane. 

Lincoln Avenue and Wells Street TLC - The "After" pics

You remember the "before" pictures from this Bike Walk Lincoln Park post a few weeks ago. CDOT crews have now made major improvements up and down the stretch of Lincoln Avenue that runs through Lincoln Park. There have also been exciting maintenance work on Wells Street for pedestrians and bicyclists. Read on for details!

Crosswalks got a lot of attention the entire stretch of Lincoln. Many were not only re-painted, but upgraded from two thin lines to the much more visible zebra-crosswalk type. 

The new crosswalk striping at Lincoln Avenue and Larrabee Street. (Photo: Bike Walk Lincoln Park)

The new white thermoplastic tape is so shiny, it glints in the afternoon sun. Yes, we have become geeky enough that this makes us very happy.