The Chainlink

Bicycle Plan for the East Lakeview Neighborhood

Hey all

I am a bicyclist, advocate for mass transit and an urban planner/designer whose in the process of creating a transit plan that seeks to restructure the roadways, specifically the major arterials, in the East Lakeview neighborhood.

I am going to include in my plan separate grade bike plans on these major roads like Belmont, Clark and Halsted, where the bike lane will be situated next to the sidewalk and the limited parking that remains will be next to the moving car traffic. Essentially, a reversal of where the bike lanes are today in Chicago. Similar to Copenhagen.

Other ideas I have are limited parking, a bike share program within the neighborhood, an extension of the lake shore drive bike path inward, and eventually an on street tram or light rail network throughout the neighborhood (eventually is the key word).

I've chosen East Lakeview for many reasons but above all for its high density, major transit links, access to the lakefront and its bike trail and above all its major traffic congestion. I think if it were to happen anywhere in the city it would be here.
Why not create this neighborhood as a test/model area?

My project is practical yet somewhat idealistic as many technological items and features will be put in place that I doubt we would ever see in a city like chicago. At least in the near future.

Saying all that,
Does anyone have any ideas or comments about what they would like to see in an ideal bicycle plan for this neighborhood or any others? Any thoughts/comments/questions about the plan?

This plan is going to be spread around the East Lakeview neighborhood once completed including the various community groups and associations. It is mainly being created to generate thought into the neighborhood and make people want to take back their streets.

Any advice or ideas would be awesome and useful.

Thanks a ton

Greg

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by vxla on February 28, 2009 at 10:31am
I have had this thought that Milwaukee from Ashland to Western should be closed to vehicular traffic much like Denver's 16th street is. Offer free shuttle bus service that runs on a predictable, frequent headway (every 3-6 minutes) and use hybrid or electric buses while making a portion of Milwaukee bike-only. Really, it would just be a filler to get people from the 3 'L' stations to whatever their destination is on Milwaukee.

Interesting link Payton; there's definitely some really good ideas in there. Thanks. Although I still think the Bloomingdale line would better serve it's surrounding community by being re-instated as a rail (or light rail) line terminating as a transfer to the Blue line on one side with a route out to the Brickyard or H.I.P. on the other (yea, I know....it's nearly impossible to get over the converging rail lines just west of Hamlin without flyovers....)
Permalink Reply by Jared on February 28, 2009 at 10:54am
The only problem with using side streets is so few go any meaningful distance in a continuous manner. I'll use side streets when I can but if I want to go any meaningful distance I am forced onto arterials. I'm sure if I were to look at a map I could come up with a few routes, but again one-way streets tend to complicate things, but of course that could be changed.
Permalink Reply by payton on February 28, 2009 at 11:58am
The idea with a bike boulevard is to find those side streets that go through -- granted, there are fewer in East Lakeview than further inland, but think of Wellington or Roscoe -- and make them "bicycle priority." No parking is typically removed, although it may be relocated, since bikes use the street. By identifying key routes and removing the unnecessary one-way restrictions (in many cases, they're effectively one-way for cars but two-way for bikes) you can actually find a lot of available routes. In North America, the city that's gone furthest in implementing bike boulevards is probably Vancouver, which has based its bike network around boulevards. Portland is building 100 miles of them.

Around here, we'd like to place Bus Tracker information-and-news displays within shops. It encourages traffic in local businesses while also providing the necessary information.

Eric, the Bloomingdale Line never carried passenger service, so I doubt it would perform all that well as a passenger line -- the neighborhoods it goes through are predominantly single-family (with a few loft conversions) and don't offer much ridership density. A much bigger bang for the buck, transit-wise, would be to improve existing services on North or Armitage, which has long had transit service and thus much higher densities. As with the tram idea, spending a ton of money to add a whole lot of transit capacity within a corridor that will yield only a marginal ridership gain does not sound like an effective use of tax dollars -- especially when there are much lower-hanging fruit available.
Permalink Reply by jonathan on February 28, 2009 at 5:14pm
couldn't bike paths be scrubbed instead of plowed? I've seen this work on the side walk at Evanston / northwestern campus. I really like T.C's mention of the bike traffic light timing.
Permalink Reply by vxla on March 1, 2009 at 7:21pm
Payton: A case could be made for restoring the former Bloomingdale line As you know, it was the Humboldt Park branch originally built in 1985 as part of the Met West Side operations. I honestly think that 4-6 4-car trains could handle ridership if planned on a 7-12 minute headway (at peak) between the Blue line and Brickyard. While it doesn't target the traditional ridership density (I go by the rule of thumb that a dense collection of 3-story, or more, buildings requires rail transit), it would serve an underserved area that sees rapid transit as one of the only alternatives to traveling. Restoring this line on a modified version using the Bloomingdale ROW and finding a way over the aforementioned issues while creating an elevated structure over Grand that could possibly be extended to a terminal in Elmwood Park really needs to get into a 2040 or 2050 study.

Now, granted, the Brickyard is now a COMPLETE disaster; how the hell that was planned to be a suburban-type mall, I don't know.

I will never support Bloomingdale as a cycle/running path for the reason that ROW is far too valuable to acquire, and perfectly good routes exist if car parking or traffic was eliminated on a parallel neighborhood street.
Permalink Reply by payton on March 2, 2009 at 12:05am
actually, Eric, the Metropolitan West Side "L" Humboldt Park branch had nothing to do with Bloomingdale. it ran along my alley, just north of North Avenue, and I can point out numerous remnants of its prior existence. I can also assure you (as your friendly neighborhood zoning guru) that the average density right alongside Bloomingdale is largely two-story and single-family, quite unlike the higher densities you'll find along... North Avenue.

now, conjecture: Brickyard was an under-used industrial site, but someone thought it would be great as a suburban enclosed mall -- bringing the convenience of weather protected shopping to one of the city's edges. that was profitable for a while, but the mall eventually failed, and it got replaced with "more modern" retail, which means a strip mall.
Permalink Reply by vxla on March 2, 2009 at 12:53am
payton said:
actually, Eric, the Metropolitan West Side "L" Humboldt Park branch had nothing to do with Bloomingdale. it ran along my alley, just north of North Avenue, and I can point out numerous remnants of its prior existence. I can also assure you (as your friendly neighborhood zoning guru) that the average density right alongside Bloomingdale is largely two-story and single-family, quite unlike the higher densities you'll find along... North Avenue.


now, conjecture: Brickyard was an under-used industrial site, but someone thought it would be great as a suburban enclosed mall -- bringing the convenience of weather protected shopping to one of the city's edges. that was profitable for a while, but the mall eventually failed, and it got replaced with "more modern" retail, which means a strip mall.

yes, that's what I implied with my post above. I know where the original ROW was; my point was that the Bloomingdale ROW could be used in it's stead for similar service. Nowhere did I state there were population densities of North Avenue, East Lakeview, etc. along the Humboldt Park line. I'm curious as to what the city plans to do with the inevitable gentrification that is going to probably occur along North avenue in the next 20-30 years. Where will the population increase and would it be relevant to a rail rapid transit just to the north (rhetortical, I don't think anyone can answer that)?

The Brickyard (original version) was long ignored by the city and the lack of any anchor stores is what caused it to fail, in addition to the various gangs that were running the mall by the time of it's demise. What a shame, it was actually a good use of space for it's time.
Permalink Reply by vxla on March 2, 2009 at 1:00am
vxla said:
Payton: A case could be made for restoring the former Bloomingdale line As you know, it was the Humboldt Park branch originally built in 1985 as part of the Met West Side operations. I honestly think
Whoops, type-o! That's 1895...when all good things were built! :-)
Permalink Reply by Mark Kenseth on February 25, 2011 at 12:43pm
Recent blog post and study on cycle tracks / buffered bike lanes in Portland.
Permalink Reply by Eric R on February 25, 2011 at 7:43pm

While I'm all for what you propose, keep in mind that no parking meter spots can be removed, unless you can propose a new location of equal value for them. Or (I propose) the city can build a parking garage downtown so we can streetscape areas like Lakeview BUT this involves tax payers paying for the garage just to give Chicago Parking Meters, LLC revenue for the next 75 years. A costly approach to freeing up space.

 

Also, someone mentioned an issue with left turns for your proposed bike lanes by the curb, in this situation I do a "crosswalk cross" to turn left, which takes a little more time but is sometimes safer if I can't merge to make a left. I think this is how they make lefts in Copenhagen on certain roads (so I've seen in videos).

 

Good luck with your plan.

(I skimmed the other comments, so hopefully I'm not repeating too much.)

Permalink Reply by Lee Crandell on February 25, 2011 at 10:40pm

I'm on the board of the Lake View Citizens' Council (the umbrella neighborhood association) and we now organize a monthly neighborhood bike ride (http://www.thechainlink.org/group/bikelakeview). You should come out to a ride to chat with neighbors.

 

This sounds like a great endeavor, but if you want it to have an impact, I'd have some suggestions for approach. As payton implied, the neighborhood groups can be difficult. I'm encouraged that they're embracing these bike rides though and I have three other board members working with me to organize them. The Lakeview Chamber seems to be doing a master plan inspired by Wicker Park/Bucktown and the Lakeview East Chamber has expressed interest in a bike station and using street space more for people (they do an incredible job transforming street spaces for their art festival). So reason to believe people can be receptive.

 

People are generally positive about biking and transit, but nonetheless they are still very defensive about parking, and biking can still be controversial. If you throw too much at them at once, it's very possible it'll spark some backlash. That could hurt future efforts, when people then say, "We've already discussed that bike stuff and we didn't like it."

 

So my suggestion on approach is to start with the basics and separate the realistic from the idealistic if you're going to present it to the neighborhood. Show what could easily be done with minimal budget and effort within a year or so that wouldn't disrupt traffic status quo too much. You can also show how some of the more aggressive concepts might look on a street, with a timeline that would ease the neighborhood into it. But I'd avoid jumping straight to introducing a plan for totally transforming the neighborhood.

 

On the basics side, you could suggest bike lanes on Belmont, Addison and Diversey to connect the CTA station to East Lakeview. And payton's bike boulevards suggestion could go over well. I'd love to see one on School/Aldine, connecting three elementary schools and east side of the neighborhood from the lake west to Roscoe Village. A good beginner step toward bike boulevards could be contra-flow bike lanes on some of the one-way streets like School/Aldine. Particularly in East Lakeview, the one-way streets are all designed to spit traffic onto busy arterials, which is often what cyclists are trying to avoid. It's impossible to plan a ride route that goes east of Broadway. Belmont and Broadway could use some bike parking corrals since the sidewalks don't have much space. The Clark and Halsted intersection needs to be redesigned and the abutting building need to be redeveloped. The intersection and parking lots kill all foot traffic that could come from the Belmont L stop, and the result is businesses on the blocks south on Clark have trouble staying open. Lakeview East Chamber is concerned about how to enliven those blocks. Maybe show a design concept for a cycle track on Clark. I think the city has long-term plans for bus rapid transit on Halsted.

Permalink Reply by Eric R on February 25, 2011 at 11:46pm
I just noticed this thread started in 2009, I guess parking meters weren't a concern then. I was wondering why nobody mentioned it.

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