Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on March 3, 2011 at 3:01pm

The process of holding public meetings for feedback, then incorporating ideas into designs is not a speedy one.  2014 does seem like a long wait, though.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on March 3, 2011 at 4:14pm

Go to Wednesday's MBAC meeting and ask CDOT themselves!

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Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on March 5, 2011 at 7:33pm

Is anyone else concerned about the chosen location?

 

I feel it may not attract sufficient numbers of new or existing cyclists to either support its construction, or to support its continued existence. The support for the cycle track would need to come from the local neighborhood and the city residents at large. Chainlinkers should make themselves aware of the controversy in Brooklyn around the Prospect Park West two-way protected bike lane. 

 

The number of lanes was reduced from 3 to 2. I believe there was a loss in parking space. A group of residents, Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes (NBBL), perceive that the change made loading and unloading cars more dangerous. The City's data shows better compliance to traffic laws by all users (people driving, walking, and bicycling) after the bike lane's installation and the roadway's narrowing.

 

There may be some positive aspect of the Chicago cycle track location: The drivers that people will perceive as being negatively affected by such a project taking away road space from the cars' domain will not respond to public meetings because of their transience; a lot of people who drive on this section of Stony Island are traveling from Lake Shore Drive to the Dan Ryan and do not live near the construction zone. 

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on March 6, 2011 at 4:12am

Well said.  I agree totally

 

Also, other concerns center around being penned up behind slower bike traffic, peds and even motorists who might block access to entrance/egress areas of these protected lanes.  Crowding in these cycle pens will almost certainly lead to safety issues especially amongst the faster riders and imposed speed limits will surely follow.

 

Once these lanes become commonplace the phrase "get back on the sidewalk, stupid" will be replaced with "get back in those bike lanes!" and many riders feel our access to regular street routes may become limited.  

 

Even with bike lanes many cyclists feel we are "painting ourselves into a corner" -and with every dedicated bike area we build we are loosing our moral prerogative  to demand equal access to all regular streets and roads.   Imagine a future where most roads without a bike lane or cycle track becomes like Lakeshore Drive and off limits to us.  I don't like that thought.

 

Still, I agree that there are places where something needs to be done and these cycle tracks might be very beneficial.   There are pros and cons to everything and these are no different.  I am loathe to take up the banner of "any bike infrastructure = good," offhand.  

H3N3 said:

Great thoughts, Steve; I suspect I'm not the only one getting duplicate thread fatigue though.

The blowback over the protected bikeway in Brooklyn was discussed at length here a while back.

Concerns about the cycle tracks have been laid out in several other threads over the past few weeks.

One that was mentioned on the Bike Chicago listserv that wasn't brought up here was laid out on http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/

I don't see how to link to an individual posting-- see "Safer Bike Lanes" about 60% of the way down the page.

Specifically:

Second, the bikers are going to just love being penned in by a curb and a Jersey wall when someone pops out to hit them with a two-by-four to steal their bikes, phones and i-Pods. Every copper in the city can name a viaduct or stretch of bike lane notorious for muggings, robberies and random beatings of bikers. Many times, the cyclists can utilize their mobility avoid or escape the worst of an attack. But this sounds exactly like the chute to a slaughterhouse.

I think this is a valid concern. 

 

As I've said in (too many) other places, protected bike lanes will be wonderful improvements in certain places (I could name about 10-20 places I'd benefit from them on my regular travels) but locations need to be chosen with careful consideration of contextual appropriateness.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Doom on March 6, 2011 at 4:58am

It's actually a really good location. Moo & Oink is on 72nd Street and Jewel is on 75th Street, so in theory this should make it easier for people to use bikes to run routine errands since that stretch of Stony isn't fun to bike on. If people don't use it, that just shows that maybe these things shouldn't be built. If it does work I could see it being extended north into Hyde Park, which would be a good idea.

This is really nothing at all like the bike lane on Prospect Park West (where I grew up), by the way, which was a pretty dubious bit of planning for any number of reasons, even though I think it's cool to have a bike lane there. Prospect Park West is pretty narrow as is for a main arterial. It would have been much better to have just turned the parkside sidewalk into a multi-use path.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on March 6, 2011 at 5:35am

I agree.  This is an area where there are very few north-south through routes and many possible destinations.  Conditions here are very different than what we find in most north side locations.  It's an extremely wide street where full capacity is not used by existing traffic most of the time, and traffic speeds tend to be high.

Dr. Doom said:

It's actually a really good location. Moo & Oink is on 72nd Street and Jewel is on 75th Street, so in theory this should make it easier for people to use bikes to run routine errands since that stretch of Stony isn't fun to bike on. If people don't use it, that just shows that maybe these things shouldn't be built. If it does work I could see it being extended north into Hyde Park, which would be a good idea.

This is really nothing at all like the bike lane on Prospect Park West (where I grew up), by the way, which was a pretty dubious bit of planning for any number of reasons, even though I think it's cool to have a bike lane there. Prospect Park West is pretty narrow as is for a main arterial. It would have been much better to have just turned the parkside sidewalk into a multi-use path.

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