The Chainlink

Kinzie. It's what's next.

Hopefully you've heard by now that CDOT will begin construction this week on the city's first protected bike lane: Kinzie Street from Milwaukee Avenue/Desplaines Street to Wells Street. 

 

Full story on Steven Can Plan. 

 

I want to know what you think about this.

  • What do you feel will need special attention?
  • Is this the right or wrong location for such a facility? Why?
  • Are you going to thank/congratulate Rahm, Gabe, and the CDOT Bicycle Program?
  • Will you use it?

 

Cycle track and protected bike lane naysayers, this isn't the post for you. But if you've ridden in protected bike lanes before, then I welcome your constructive comments and criticism based on your actual experiences. 

Big intersection

The new beginning. Looking southeast at the intersection of Kinzie/Milwaukee/Desplaines. 

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on June 10, 2011 at 3:15pm
People have an amazing ability to NOT see what's directly in front of them.

Cameron Puetz said:
I worked in road construction for a few years. Never underestimate the ability of driver to miss that road is closed. The number of times I've seen drivers go around barricades and then start screaming when they get stuck in the mud boggles the mind. The winner was a lady of drove into a work site and rear ended a D8R claiming that she just didn’t see it.

Mike Zumwalt said:
Yeah but still like the drivers don't notice? But I give them too much credit after watching numerous cars try to continue through the closed part of the Wacker reconstruction.
Permalink Reply by Bike Bloke on June 10, 2011 at 5:22pm
Taken this afternoon at about 4pm at the Clark/Broadway/Diversey intersection - this must be the same group waiting to snag any cyclist unwise enough to run a red light on their way home northbound this evening. Fair enough, but just look at where the cop has parked his patrol car for the duration. That's right - less than a car length from the busiest intersection in the neighborhood and right in the middle of the bus stop. That's pretty rich for something that's not an emergency, not only causing unnecessary congestion but also endangering other road users while lecturing people about safety. Nice!
Permalink Reply by chixieonfixie on June 10, 2011 at 9:18pm

Well..I sure hope the new cycle track doesnt wind up like NYC bike lanes.  Elsewise we could all end up in a video like this:

 

http://alttransport.com/2011/06/new-york-cycle-activist-skewers-the...

Permalink Reply by Allen Wrench on June 10, 2011 at 11:01pm

the NYC lanes are really nice - I rode some of them this winter. There is other traffic on the roads there, more than most places in Chicago, and increasing bike usage by people who didn't ride before, so some of the old Red Light Ninjas and Lance / Messenger riders feel hemmed in and miss weaving in and out of taxis. And yeah, there are potholes and fedex trucks everywhere, black clothed unlighted restaurant delivery electrobikes salmoning down every block, or cops parking in the lane. But realistically, it's much easier and quicker to ride the new lanes now that they're there than is was to try to get anywhere without them years ago. I hope the cycletracks here incorporate a lot of what has been done in NYC.

Look at Streetsblog NYC for more info than you can stand about those NY lanes. I guess they're safe now that Weiner's out of the running? By the way, the video says that NY law requires bikes to use the lane if present, which Illinois law apparently doesn't. I think.

For a better example of cycletrack models we should look at for Chicago, of course, it's northern Europe. Important to note though that cycletracks there are great, but make up only a small part of an integrated transit system with buses, trains, and trams. There's less support to get around Chicago than in any of those cities not even counting bikes.

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on June 11, 2011 at 8:22am

The Kinzie effort sounds like a good pre-start effort although I've not yet had a chance to look at it in person.  I don't often go down that far but it seems like when I do it will be an improvement from my usual route.  I'll have to go ride it to form an opinion.

 

I'd like to see more than "talk" about what kind of plan the mayor's team has here (and not just the bike lanes.)  It sounds like the "plan" the cylons had in BSG -basically they didn't have one and they (the writers) were making up the plot as they shot each show.    Just saying you have a plan doesn't make it so!  

 

So it would be nice to see a real actual time-table with a schedule of which roads were going to be next and when.  When I see this I'll be a bit more sanguine about the "plan" not being just so much talk.  They must have some plan in mind or else they couldn't have started with Kinzie -or was it just the first thing they hit with the dart when they threw it against a map of the city?   Hooking up with Milwaukee might be a no-brainer.   What's next?  It seems the "plan" is a bit amorphic at this point.  

It's been a month...

Permalink Reply by Mark Kenseth on June 11, 2011 at 9:26am

I haven't seen this mentioned: The Kinzie bike lane doesn't seem like 1/2 mile, unless you count both sides. Is the Kinzie bike lane 1/4 mile long on both sides, and therefore measured and advertised as a 1/2 mile of new bike lane(s).   Is that how the City is going to measure bike lanes, two one-way parts?  Is that how streets are measured?  To me, that means the City plans on building 50 miles of buffered bike lanes.  I think that's good in the end, but I was under a different understanding.  Is anyone else confused?

Permalink Reply by Duppie on June 11, 2011 at 10:34am
As Steven Vance pointed out, the Kinzie Street bike lane will be 0.53 miles long and run from Des Plaines to Wells.

Mark Kenseth said:

I haven't seen this mentioned: The Kinzie bike lane doesn't seem like 1/2 mile, unless you count both sides. Is the Kinzie bike lane 1/4 mile long on both sides, and therefore measured and advertised as a 1/2 mile of new bike lane(s).   Is that how the City is going to measure bike lanes, two one-way parts?  Is that how streets are measured?  To me, that means the City plans on building 50 miles of buffered bike lanes.  I think that's good in the end, but I was under a different understanding.  Is anyone else confused?

Permalink Reply by Duppie on June 11, 2011 at 10:45am

Read Steven Vance's writeup of the MBAC meeting earlier this week.

From that:

  • The new Streets for Cycling plan will be completed by Bike to Work day 2012.
  • The first 25 miles of protected bike lanes have been assessed already and will focus on getting bicyclists in and out of downtown. These bike lanes will be completed before the plan is completed.
  • Public meetings will be held later this summer to discuss future locations of the bicycle network.

 

James Baum said:

The Kinzie effort sounds like a good pre-start effort although I've not yet had a chance to look at it in person.  I don't often go down that far but it seems like when I do it will be an improvement from my usual route.  I'll have to go ride it to form an opinion.

 

I'd like to see more than "talk" about what kind of plan the mayor's team has here (and not just the bike lanes.)  It sounds like the "plan" the cylons had in BSG -basically they didn't have one and they (the writers) were making up the plot as they shot each show.    Just saying you have a plan doesn't make it so!  

 

So it would be nice to see a real actual time-table with a schedule of which roads were going to be next and when.  When I see this I'll be a bit more sanguine about the "plan" not being just so much talk.  They must have some plan in mind or else they couldn't have started with Kinzie -or was it just the first thing they hit with the dart when they threw it against a map of the city?   Hooking up with Milwaukee might be a no-brainer.   What's next?  It seems the "plan" is a bit amorphic at this point.  

It's been a month...

Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on June 11, 2011 at 11:13am

The Kinzie Street protected bike lane is 0.5 miles long, both sides. If you did a round trip from Milwaukee/Desplaines/Kinzie to Kinzie/Wells and back to Milwaukee/Desplaines/Kinzie, you would have traveled 1 mile. 

See Google Maps. 

The city has for the longest time counted both sides of the street as a single length of bike lane and not two one-way segments. 


Mark Kenseth said:

I haven't seen this mentioned: The Kinzie bike lane doesn't seem like 1/2 mile, unless you count both sides. Is the Kinzie bike lane 1/4 mile long on both sides, and therefore measured and advertised as a 1/2 mile of new bike lane(s).   Is that how the City is going to measure bike lanes, two one-way parts?  Is that how streets are measured?  To me, that means the City plans on building 50 miles of buffered bike lanes.  I think that's good in the end, but I was under a different understanding.  Is anyone else confused?

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on June 11, 2011 at 12:15pm

 When they talk about how many "miles" of surface streets and highways are in the city they count each lane in each direction.   That's how they get to the many thousands of miles of Chicago-area freeways.  

 

I don't see why they would count bike lanes differently.  

 

While I think that protected bike lanes are a good idea downtown, I'm still not very optimistic about their usefulness (or even advisability) for the most part out in the surrounding neighborhoods. 


Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on June 11, 2011 at 12:28pm

I agree that it's important to consider context when deciding whether this type of lane is the best choice.

Hopefully whoever is making the decisions is doing so, but only the trib and times have access to the one-way communication pipeline so we'll just have to sit on our hands and hope for the best.

I would not agree on the downtown vs. outlying neighborhood distinction.  I think there are several other factors that are of greater consideration; primary arteries that see a lot of bike traffic because there are few secondary alternatives in that location, for one (North Avenue as it crosses the North Branch, or Western Ave from about Bloomingdale to Logan, or Damen by the United Center or from 14th to 16th, for example); and neighborhood "centers" that are likely to see a lot of local bike traffic for shopping and errands, in which casual cyclists might otherwise be too intimidated (Irving/Damen/Lincoln area, Lincoln Square, University Village/Southwest Loop commercial area, Jefferson Park, North/Sheffield shopping area.)

 

James Baum said:

 When they talk about how many "miles" of surface streets and highways are in the city they count each lane in each direction.   That's how they get to the many thousands of miles of Chicago-area freeways.  

 

I don't see why they would count bike lanes differently.  

 

While I think that protected bike lanes are a good idea downtown, I'm still not very optimistic about their usefulness (or even advisability) for the most part out in the surrounding neighborhoods. 


Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on June 11, 2011 at 12:46pm

I agree that bridge and highway over/underpasses would be well served -as well as many RR underpasses.  When these types of infrastructures were built absolutely NO thought was taken for bike traffic or their safety.  They are horrible pinch-points which end up as serious danger-zones for bikes trying to navigate them.

 

As for sitting on the hands, taking a YEAR to make a plan seems a little on the glacial scale if you ask me -espeically since the ambitious plan for hundreds of miles of protected lanes in a few years is ticking on the clock.  A year is significant part of the time towards the target date.

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