City of Chicago attempts to have bike lanes ruled "Recreational Facilities"

Nice read:

In a hearing last week in the Circuit Court of Cook County the City of Chicago sought to have all of the bicycle lanes installed throughout the City declared “recreational facilities.” The effect of this creative legal maneuver would have been to immunize the municipality for injuries to bicyclists caused by the City’s failure to keep its bike lanes safe for riders.

Granted, this is probably the doing of one individual city lawyer in one case, but it's a nice read.

The rest is at my favorite lawyer's website:

http://www.bikelaw.com/2016/01/18/city-of-chicago-fails-in-attempt-...

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Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on January 18, 2016 at 12:29pm

Thanks for sharing this article. I'm so glad it failed.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on January 19, 2016 at 4:16am

Considering that federal transportation funding pays for a large percentage of new bike infrastructure, and CDOT folks have said plenty of times that the bike route network we're developing is about transportation, it's very ironic that a city lawyer was making such a weaselly argument. I'm very glad the judge said no.