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Wicker Park Committee votes against protected lanes on Milwaukee

DNA Info article says that Wicker Park Committee has voted against protected bike lanes on Milwaukee between North Avenue and Division due to concerns about the effects on motor vehicle parking.

 

"It would kill the merchants. For the sake of bikes you're disturbing vehicle and pedestrian traffic.  What are you going to do, walk a block and a half to cross the street? ... Why don't we create a second level bike lane that goes over the streets like the "L" tracks?" said Kevin O'Donnell, owner of Pint Bar, 1547 N. Milwaukee Ave.

 

O'Donnell, who has owned Pint for nine years, said parking is already tough on Milwaukee, "a corridor rich with retail and restaurants."

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Curcio on April 10, 2013 at 6:57pm

"Andersonvillain"--Freudian slip or deliberate Meneer Duppie? :D

Permalink Reply by william on April 10, 2013 at 8:10pm

And that's exactly the rigid, ideological, or even fundamentalist thing I mentioned in my previous post. Nice job, perfect timing there. 

Like it or not, we share the road with cars. Peak oil disaster scenarios aside, that aint going to change anytime soon. City planners need to balance pedestrian/bicycle/auto traffic. And in such tight areas as that stretch of Milwaukee, it has to be just right or else the result would be more of clusterfuck than it already is and perhaps lead to further setbacks to other City of Chicago bicycle initiatives. 

James BlackHeron said:

Boo hoo traffic clusterfuck.  If people want to drive then they should move over onto the Kennedy just to the side.   

Too many people are using cars for short trips and Milwaukee is a prime example of this.   The Kennedy is right off to the side if they don't like driving on a parking lot.  I say slow them down even more.  Maybe they'll decide to take a bike or ride the Blue line.  So many alternatives and yet cars STILL drive up and down Milwaukee like it is the interstate on the long haul downtown or outbound.

Make it narrower, make it slower, make it unbearable to drive on in a big hulking gas-guzzling CO2-spewing car.   That's the whole point. 

Built it and they will come.  Maybe unbuild it and the damn cars will finally go somewhere else. 

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on April 10, 2013 at 8:39pm

How pessimistic.  We may not be able to change the whole world, but we can and will change at least parts of our city, even without your help or support.

william said:

And that's exactly the rigid, ideological, or even fundamentalist thing I mentioned in my previous post. Nice job, perfect timing there. 

Like it or not, we share the road with cars. Peak oil disaster scenarios aside, that aint going to change anytime soon

Permalink Reply by Alex Z on April 11, 2013 at 7:40am


+1

 

While I would love to just get rid of all parking on that stretch of Milwaukee--the road is too narrow as it is--I can't say I -know- that no businesses would suffer as a result. But it would sure be interesting to see. I'd support trying it out.


James BlackHeron said:


Make it narrower, make it slower, make it unbearable to drive on in a big hulking gas-guzzling CO2-spewing car.   That's the whole point.

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on April 11, 2013 at 8:00am

There might as well be no parking on Milwaukee as there is so little of it to begin with and there iare never any open spots.  it might as well not exist at all for all practical purposes.  Just rip it out and put in PBL's instead.  

More bikes riding up and down Milwaukee means more customers for the street's businesses that can ACTUALLY STOP and frequent them.   Because cars really can't find parking anyhow the people in them aren't likely to stop.   Businesses need to wake up and realize that bike-riders and pedestrians from the L are their main base of customers -not car drivers parking out front.

I ride Milwaukee just about every day and the vast majority of car traffic is on the long haul (20 or more blocks) not stopping at local businesses.   Why these people just don't take the Kennedy to get in or out of the downtown is beyond me.  It doesn't always move well but it moves a LOT faster than Milwaukee.   As a rider we pass car after car of stopped traffic on this road and I always wonder what special mental condition drives anyone to try and drive down these roads like Milwaukee to get anywhere.  It's Stupid. 

But apparently it isn't a painful enough experience for them to get them to change their ways and stop trying to drive their cars up and down narrow parking lot roads like Milwaukee to get places.   In order to make them make better choices we need to make the wrong choices more painful -not easier.  Make the roads narrower, make it harder to drive around on surface streets.  Give them incentives to STOP doing this.

Making the roads wider and faster only brings more cars to fill them up.   STOP doing that!

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on April 11, 2013 at 8:16am

Make it so.

Alex Z said:


+1

 

While I would love to just get rid of all parking on that stretch of Milwaukee--the road is too narrow as it is--I can't say I -know- that no businesses would suffer as a result. But it would sure be interesting to see. I'd support trying it out.

 

Permalink Reply by Duppie on April 11, 2013 at 8:32am



Lisa Curcio 4.0 mi said:

"Andersonvillain"--Freudian slip or deliberate Meneer Duppie? :D

Permalink Reply by Alex Z on April 11, 2013 at 11:38am

James BlackHeron said:

There might as well be no parking on Milwaukee as there is so little of it to begin with and there iare never any open spots.  it might as well not exist at all for all practical purposes.

This is my thinking as well. I'm surprised you don't see this argument made more often.

Permalink Reply by Mike Zumwalt on April 11, 2013 at 3:36pm

I don't know? Make him Mayor of another city?LOL

I like this design for a commuter lane like Dearborn, Western, Kinzie, and on Milwaukee from Kinzie all the way to Division.

The problem is the streets are one or 2 lanes depending on what part of town you're in so attempting to put one in along a complete section through various 'hoods won't work too well.

h' 1.0 said:

How do we get Rahm to google it then...?

Mike Zumwalt said:

Well he might have googled it and got something like this 

h' 1.0 said:

What are you going to do, walk a block and a half to cross the street? ...

I'm not saying there aren't valid arguments against it, but this is a certified load of crap.

Does this person know what a protected bilke lane is?

Permalink Reply by Active Transportation Alliance on April 11, 2013 at 9:40pm

I met recently with Ald. Waguespack to follow up on the petition for protected bike lanes on Milwaukee that many of you signed. He had already signed our statement of support for 100 miles of protected bike lanes, but he is also interested in what the community thinks  about projects like Milwaukee before acting, and your support is making an impact! Groups like Wicker Park Committee do play an important role in the civic conversation in our neighborhoods, and it's important for us to engage in that conversation outside the bike community too. More than 1/3 of the people in that room voted that yes, they'd support a potential parking reduction in order to install a protected bike lane -- if more of us were engaged, that vote would shift. We know that Chicagoans want streets that prioritize safety and livability, so we're on the winning side! If you live in Wicker Park, I'd encourage you to consider getting involved by actually joining Wicker Park Committee and attending their next member meeting May 1 to get to know them and share your support: http://wickerparkcommittee.com . Then next time this comes up at one of their meetings, you may be there to speak up and vote too!

Active Trans campaign manager Jim also shared some thoughts about this on our blog: http://www.activetrans.org/blog/jmerrell/protected-parking-or-prote...

- Lee Crandell, Active Trans

Permalink Reply by Jason W on April 12, 2013 at 4:04pm

I fail to see how less parking means more traffic. This is what the cagers scream when a traffic lane is taken away for a bike lane, but that doesn't apply here by any logic. Less car parking would mean less cars coming to park. Less idiots holding up traffic because they can't parallel park too!

Permalink Reply by Adam Herstein on April 12, 2013 at 4:06pm

Easy (and cheap) solution: ban all motor traffic between Division and Western.

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