New protected bike lanes announced - Elston, 18th

Our team at the MBAC meeting just let us know that Elston (Division to North) and 18th (Clinton to Clark) will be the next protected bike lanes by the end of this year!

Thanks, CDOT!

Ethan Spotts, Active Trans

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Permalink Reply by Adam Herstein on June 28, 2012 at 4:12am

I noticed many cars illegally parked in the bike lane and slashed area on Elston. I am willing to give them a free pass though, since the project is not yet complete. This problem will be solved once CDOT installs bollards. I haven't seen any parking or driving in the area with bollards.

On a side note, does anyone know if the protected bike lane will extend all the way south to Milwaukee? Right now, it ends at just north of the rail underpass. The underpass is a dangerous pinch point with parked cars on the right and fast moving traffic on the left.

I also think that the protected bike lane should have been extended north to Cortland. It makes no sense to me that the lane ends at North Ave, a very bike-unfriendly street with no bike lane. Cortland has lighter traffic and a bike lane, plus the area between North and Cortland isn't so nice on the bike.

I have also never seen anyone stop behind the bike box at North. Cars are constantly pulling all the way up and waiting at the light on top of the bike box. You's think that a big green box with a bike symbol on it would be obvious enough.

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Permalink Reply by Carter O'Brien on June 28, 2012 at 4:42am

+1, with an extra +1 for calling out that hideously, criminally stupid layout at Belmont & Kedzie.

It's the most inexcusable intersection on the north side, terribly confusing lane markers, signals, lighting and signage combined with the pinch point you refer to is THE WORST. If I had known how bad that intersection was going to be on a daily basis I would never have moved west of it.

I was fortunate to be driving and not biking a few years ago when a guy heading south on Kedzie turned west onto Belmont from the middle lane and crushed the front of my car. He was beyond confused, and thought he was in the far right lane thanks to the pinching you refer to. we traded info and he had a license from Montana and was new to the city and living in Roscoe Village, and he honestly just completely didn't see me - on a bike I'd have been seriously injured or dead, a frightening revelation as I was biking my daughter to school on a regular basis and had to cross that intersection to get there.

James BlackHeron said:

While I'm a fan of narrowing lanes and putting roads on diets, I am not a fan of physical barriers that narrow lanes in such a way as to force bikes into existential conflict with automobiles due to pinching where the bicycles traveling alongside of the lane are also pinched.

This is counter-productive. One of the worst and most-dangerous of these poorly-thought out pinch-points is Kedzie where it crosses the Kennedy. Going northbound the lane is constricted by a HUGE curb bump-out that puts 2-3 lanes of cars and bikes into a what might barely be called 2 narrow (but unmarked) lanes. There is NOT enough room for 2 lanes of cars AND bikes to co-exist safely but cars will still try and jam into this area, with no safety margin for bikes at all if they happen to hit this area at the wrong time after the light turns.

I'm sure there was some ill-thought-out traffic-engineer reason for this back when it was first built but it is stupid as all hell and very dangerous for bikes being pinched.

if traffic lanes are pinched/calmed when a road diet is executed then the bikes MUST HAVE a safety valve to move over and OUT of the pinched area -not be forced up against a hard curb by "calmed" auto traffic. That is just a backwards design IMHO. I really wish the traffic "engineers" would stop doing stupid things like that.

Steven Vance said:

I'd chalk this up to the fact that only the areas at the concrete medians were narrowed. I don't like the way the project turned out, either.

h' said:

You know, I realize that narrowing the lane physically or visually is suposed to cause drivers to slow down according to every beginning traffic planner textbook, but I have to say I haven't seen this benefit much here.

I had my first opportunity to check out the results of the Humbolt Blvd "road diet" last Thursday evening (I was on foot) and was kind of disgusted to see a steady, uninterrupted stream of cars driving way too fast (except now in one lane instead of two . . .)-- didn't look one bit more like a street I'd feel safe biking on than it did before.

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Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on June 28, 2012 at 5:03am

The intersection of Kedzie and Belmont is the #1 reason I avoid going to the Aldi in Avondale at Belmont/Kimball, which is less than a mile from my house, and visit the Aldi in Wicker Park at Milwaukee/Leavitt, which is over 2 miles from home. (Thankfully there's a great Mexican grocery store *on my block* that I can shop at.)

I prefer to walk to the Avondale Aldi over biking there, although the trip is 4x longer.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Mulcky on June 28, 2012 at 5:07am

They're inserting the protected bike lanes as the road surfaces are refinished. That's why it hasn't been extended to Mke or Cortland yet. At least, that how I understand it.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Herstein on June 28, 2012 at 5:11am

Makes sense. The pavement north of North Ave is pretty awful and the bike lanes are faded in many spots. A road resurface there would definitely be appreciated!

Kelvin Mulcky said:

They're inserting the protected bike lanes as the road surfaces are refinished. That's why it has ben extended to Mke or Cortland yet. At least, that how I understand it.

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Permalink Reply by Gopher Biker on June 28, 2012 at 12:24pm

There were about 12 cars in the bike lanes between Cortez and Augusta however several had tickets when I went through around 4:45! There was one car parked in the bike lane between a car parked legally and the curb (no ticket on that one though) on the east side of the street close to that new bar/restaurant.

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Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on June 28, 2012 at 12:31pm

All the buffered bike lanes this year were installed on crap pavement: Roscoe, Campbell, Division. Lake Street has some bad pavement on its protected bike lane parts (west of Western).

Jurisdiction is another reason bike lanes may be delayed. I was going to check on IDOT's jurisdiction map, but it's having errors right now.

Kelvin Mulcky said:

They're inserting the protected bike lanes as the road surfaces are refinished. That's why it hasn't been extended to Mke or Cortland yet. At least, that how I understand it.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Mulcky on June 28, 2012 at 1:06pm

That may be true, but if resurfacing is scheduled, it makes sense to hold off until the work is finished. That way the city isn't doing all the work twice in a short period of time.