Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on April 20, 2013 at 1:36pm

And Damen doesn't go through either. It stops at Pershing, but only after a totally wretched for bikes bridge over the river and a long dark tunnel under a rail yard in Pilsen. 

h' 1.0 said:

You realize California doesn't go through from South to north?

How often do you currently ride it across east Garfield?

I have no need to see Western designated any sort of bike corridor, but there are sections that could use some improvements.

I rarely ride on Damen personally-- it's too far from anywhere I usually need to go.

Alex Z said:

At this point, I don't think adding bike lanes on Western or Ashland should be a priority. Damen and California, with some limitations, serve very well as north-south biking thoroughfares, in my experience.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Zumwalt on April 21, 2013 at 4:47am

California is great from Grand to Montrose on a bike, but then what?

Alex Z said:

At this point, I don't think adding bike lanes on Western or Ashland should be a priority. Damen and California, with some limitations, serve very well as north-south biking thoroughfares, in my experience.

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Permalink Reply by Jared on April 21, 2013 at 5:55am

Going north you follow a few side streets through Ravenswood Manor, then get back on California which can take you to the city line and then on to Evanston once it becomes Dodge.

Mike Zumwalt said:

California is great from Grand to Montrose on a bike, but then what?

Alex Z said:

At this point, I don't think adding bike lanes on Western or Ashland should be a priority. Damen and California, with some limitations, serve very well as north-south biking thoroughfares, in my experience.

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Permalink Reply by Alex Z on April 21, 2013 at 3:09pm

I apologize; when I said that California and Damen are good "north-south" bikeways, I just meant "north-south" as opposed to "east-west"; I didn't mean "northside-to-southside."

My point is meant to be that I am okay with the idea of having some streets be bad for bikes, if there are enough good alternatives. For a certain area of the NW side, I think that is the case with respect to Western and Ashland.

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Permalink Reply by Jason W on April 22, 2013 at 4:26am

I still think it's a waste of money. Just bring back the Ashland #9 express that they just cancelled and save $160 million dollars. This is why this city/state/country is in such terrible debt.

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Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on April 22, 2013 at 6:09am

These are all great ideas Howard.

I think it is more important to keep an eye on all this as it is now pretty clear that the BRT, at least as it has been conceived for Ashland pretty much rules out using the street on a bicycle. As I've said since the ill-conceived mission creep of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation into ActiveTrans, there are going to be times when the needs of bikes will conflict with the needs of transit. Here we have a clear example*. I pretty much never ride on Ashland so in this case it is no great loss, but if the same thing were to happen to Western we'd be totally screwed.

* I could be missing something of course, but I don't see any accommodation for riding bikes included in the BRT plans for Ashland.

h' 1.0 said:

I personally don't see the value in having one or few designated north-south or east-west corridor(s) intended for bicycles. Are there really that many of us that need to make a 10+ mile trip from one end of town to another?

The biggest challenges facing bike commuters in Chicago are the barriers created by rivers, expressways, and railroads that effectively leave us few good choices for getting from one part of town to another (see Tony's post above-- Damen becomes too scary for even experienced commuters at several points, for example.)

Here are my modest desires for Western Ave:

1) A sanctioned off-street (i.e. sidewalk) bike path for the section between Ogden and 18th street, if not an on-street lane.

2) A striped/buffered lane through the industrial/tech college corridor between Blue Island (26th) and the river, and a protected lane across the river.

3) You nord' siderss can worry 'bout your own selves, but there are few options to divert from Western on a north-south trip between Bloomingdale and Diversey or so, so some bit of on-street lane through that section

wouldn't be unwelcome.

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