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Steven,
I enjoy reading your blog and you seem well-versed in urban planning.
Not sure if this explains the why, but I do remember going to a meeting about the Lawrence Ave streetscape redesign where the project manager from CDOT mentioned that USDOT no longer recommends 4 lane roads in an urban setting.
They plan to make Lawrence avenue into a two lane (plus turn lane) from the current four lanes. Part of the explanation was that lawrence west of Western and East of Ashland(?) already is a 2 lane street. The same can be said for Damen, which is a largely a 2-lane street
I have dim memories of advocacy around this bridge. . . .come on brain! TC might remember.
What I want to know is why the North ave bridge over the river, built later, has no bike lanes. Why are arterials important to cyclists?? They are often the only access across key barriers like rivers and highways and to major commercial destinations.
The street network *is* the bikeways network.
Davo said:My pipe dream is for the Damen Elston Fullerton intersection to be a round about. Carns always blosk up the lanes there and have no where to go when the light changes. I cant count the number of times that I have had to weave through that bs
CDOT has a plan for this intersection. The plan is to remove Elston from the intersection and have Elston go around it at a right angle hundreds of feet away. It's a difficult plan because the City will have to buy others' property.
Davo said:My pipe dream is for the Damen Elston Fullerton intersection to be a round about. Carns always blosk up the lanes there and have no where to go when the light changes. I cant count the number of times that I have had to weave through that bs
CDOT has a plan for this intersection. The plan is to remove Elston from the intersection and have Elston go around it at a right angle hundreds of feet away. It's a difficult plan because the City will have to buy others' property.
Here is a rendering of what ithis reconfiguration would look like
Steven Vance said:
Davo said:My pipe dream is for the Damen Elston Fullerton intersection to be a round about. Carns always blosk up the lanes there and have no where to go when the light changes. I cant count the number of times that I have had to weave through that bs
CDOT has a plan for this intersection. The plan is to remove Elston from the intersection and have Elston go around it at a right angle hundreds of feet away. It's a difficult plan because the City will have to buy others' property.
It looks like the re-route goes directly through the current location of the Vienna Beef factory. However it is hard to tell from that rendering if that particular section is street level or raised.
Has anyone ever noticed how on the Damen Ave bridge over there, most of the metal is painted Hot Dog red? ;-)
Duppie said:Here is a rendering of what ithis reconfiguration would look like
Steven Vance said:
Davo said:My pipe dream is for the Damen Elston Fullerton intersection to be a round about. Carns always blosk up the lanes there and have no where to go when the light changes. I cant count the number of times that I have had to weave through that bs
CDOT has a plan for this intersection. The plan is to remove Elston from the intersection and have Elston go around it at a right angle hundreds of feet away. It's a difficult plan because the City will have to buy others' property.
Here's an outtake paragraph, from my story on road diets, about the Damen bridge.
I got the date from CDOT.
"Chicago has successfully implemented road diets before, like the 2004 conversion of the Damen Avenue bridge between Fullerton and Diversey. The Chicago Department of Transportation removed two of the four travel lanes and striped a median and bike lanes on the bridge, which reduced speeding and made the bridge much more bike-friendly."
The bridge originally opened in 1999.
- John Greenfield
Thank you guys for all of your help.
I am trying to build a history of bikeway expansion (and contraction) in Chicago. Your contributions about the Damen Avenue bridge helped.
You can contribute by emailing me personally or by leaving a comment here or on the Bikeway History page.
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