Questions for the next Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council meeting?
Hello Chainlinkers,
The next MBAC meeting is Wednesday June 12. 2013 (3:00 pm, City Hall, Rm 1103 - public invited!).
I'm one of three community representatives on the council and have a chance to bring up topics of discussion or ask questions of the CDOT officials during the meeting.
Since you're a large part of the bicycling community and I'm your rep, I ask you: What questions would you like asked or topics discussed?
(Edited May 31 2013 to update date)
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michelle S on
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Yes, I agree with Anika's suggestion and would throw in taxi drivers as another needed recipient of some outreach -- I had to ask two cab drivers parked squarely in the Dearborn PBL to "move along" yesterday. But what are some ideas for how this can/should be done? In the first week after Dearborn was opened, ATA staff handed out fliers to pedestrians (and possibly drivers?). The "Look" stencils for pedestrians were nice but are almost completely faded, less than two months after they were added. I know that CDOT personnel meet with CPD regularly and likely bring up issues, but how far that penetrates to the rank and file, who knows?
David Barish said:+4, but...
...I think some of that falls on the cycling community. education is something that all of us, advocacy groups, clubs etc. working with official organs such as the MBAC, need to do. This is a good way for the cycling community to get on good paper with the powers that be and perhaps actually get something done. After all, who iwill do a better job educating? riders or interns? How this is to be done is a good question. Let the conversation start.
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Permalink Reply by Lisa Curcio on
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As a start, how about eye-level signs? Eye level for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.
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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on
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+5 When I encounter problems with someone who might not be aware that they're creating a problem, I often start the conversation with "did you know..." and work under the assumption that they might not. The other person might be a pedestrian standing in the Dearborn bike lane waiting for the light to change, a driver standing or parking in a bike lane, or a person sitting in a designated bike area on a Metra train when I need to put my bike there. Sometimes person-to-person grassroots education can be just the thing. It's not a guaranteed solution, but it often helps.
David Barish said:+4, but...
...I think some of that falls on the cycling community. education is something that all of us, advocacy groups, clubs etc. working with official organs such as the MBAC, need to do. This is a good way for the cycling community to get on good paper with the powers that be and perhaps actually get something done. After all, who iwill do a better job educating? riders or interns? How this is to be done is a good question. Let the conversation start.
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Permalink Reply by Siouxzi Donnelly on
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First issue:
I'd like them to further look at the work they did on Halsted between Clybourn and Division. This is a stretch where the bike lanes and "safety spot for left turns" have actually just made it more dangerous. Southbound, cars use the bike lane from whatever that street is that joins Kingsbury (by the carwash) to Halsted as a car lane. This is because no one can figure out where to be going southbound. At Division it becomes two lanes, one for right turns/going straight. One for left turns/going straight but there's too much traffic to not have separate lanes for each action - Left, Straight, and Right. On the northbound side of the street, north of Division, the bike lane is essentially the gutter and if a bus is stopped at the division stop, the cyclist is completely blocked with no options. Cars and bikes both use the parking lot as a cut through to avoid division/halsted right there. They need to take the space from the road to the parking lot and use it to widen the street to accommodate the three lanes needed for southbound, the lane and bike and bus for northbound right there.
Also at this area going northbound more often than south, vehicles use the bike lane to drive in. The most notorious of drivers doing this are the buses! Drivers will go from the Division stop on Halsted and drive up the bike lane the whole way to Clybourn if there are no cars parked. We desperately need some enforcement in this area.
Second issue:
I'd like to see a bike lane put in on Lincoln going north from Ainslie/Western north to say Peterson or so. This street is extra wide and perfect for a bike lane. Currently the suggested bike route is to take California but it's too narrow and too busy for 2 way car traffic up in this area let alone adding bikes. It's also not conducive to commuting downtown. Cars on Lincoln currently illegally try to force this stretch of Lincoln into being a 4 lane road. It's not wide enough for that. But if we put bike lanes in, we'd be able to help slow down traffic (I hope) and give cyclists a better way to get from the north side of Lincoln Square down to the main path of Lincoln Ave and thus to downtown. I've mapped the area I'm talking about here for you
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=212798332594360866115.0004d76d...
It'd be great if it could go further north but even this would help the many cyclists I see who live in the area.
Last topic I'd love them to consider is an bike lane awareness/enforcement program. I see something organized the last week of April/first week of May. Cops enforce some of the major known violated bike lanes during the morning and evening commutes. 1 week of real enforcement as cyclist numbers increase will make drivers wake up and be aware that they can not drive in bike lanes. Follow up with an end of summer one as well at the end of August/beginning of September. You don't need to enforce them all every day, even if it was a couple of days, one direction each. Have them pull people over and issue tickets.
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Permalink Reply by Charlie Short 2.9 on
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Siouxzi-
This is something we do every summer, all summer long. We'll be doing about 100 enforcement events like this from April through September. Last year we did 91 events and the year before we did about 50. We (actually Chicago cops) hand out tickets to motorists for all sorts of offences, including parking/driving in the bike lane, driving too close to bikes, and talking on cell phones.
Siouxzi Donnelly said:Last topic I'd love them to consider is an bike lane awareness/enforcement program. I see something organized the last week of April/first week of May. Cops enforce some of the major known violated bike lanes during the morning and evening commutes. 1 week of real enforcement as cyclist numbers increase will make drivers wake up and be aware that they can not drive in bike lanes. Follow up with an end of summer one as well at the end of August/beginning of September. You don't need to enforce them all every day, even if it was a couple of days, one direction each. Have them pull people over and issue tickets.
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That's great to hear, but I can honestly say, in the 10 years I've been riding I've only once witnessed a full-fledged, multiple-cops-out, stopping-every-offender, enforcement engagement and that was only in this last year when they officially passed the pedestrian right-of-way-in-crosswalk law and the city had started putting up the yellow in-street stop for peds signs. It was great to see and did a lot for slowing cars down and making them aware that this is a law. The only other enforcement I've seen is of bikes at Halsted/Clark a couple years ago where cyclists were warned on breaking laws and strongly encouraged to wear helmets.
If I can encourage you to do this at Halsted between Willow and Division I'd greatly appreciate it. It would help if you ticketed bus drivers for doing it too. When cars see buses driving in the bike lane it just tells them they can too.
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Thanks for the tip about Halsted between Willow and Division, we'll set something up. I think we could do 400 events and there would be people that would never see us.
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Permalink Reply by Jim Freeman on
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Oh, how I dream of a day when traffic laws are enforced consistently as to all users of the roadways. What a shame that we need to point to "enforcement events" as actual enforcement.
Charlie Short 11.5 said:Siouxzi-
This is something we do every summer, all summer long. We'll be doing about 100 enforcement events like this from April through September. Last year we did 91 events and the year before we did about 50. We (actually Chicago cops) hand out tickets to motorists for all sorts of offences, including parking/driving in the bike lane, driving too close to bikes, and talking on cell phones.
Siouxzi Donnelly said:Last topic I'd love them to consider is an bike lane awareness/enforcement program. I see something organized the last week of April/first week of May. Cops enforce some of the major known violated bike lanes during the morning and evening commutes. 1 week of real enforcement as cyclist numbers increase will make drivers wake up and be aware that they can not drive in bike lanes. Follow up with an end of summer one as well at the end of August/beginning of September. You don't need to enforce them all every day, even if it was a couple of days, one direction each. Have them pull people over and issue tickets.
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The MBAC meeting was held today. I'll provide just a few elements and Anne or Julie can chime in as well, and of course, there will likely be coverage on Streetsblog Chicago as well.
CDOT has reorganized. There will be a new org chart available and they're working on a newer website as well. There will be more alignment to allow an approach that is more oriented toward "Complete Streets" and not silos for bike projects, placemaking projects, pededstrian projects, etc. The outreach to communities will be more wholistic under this new organization.
The new Complete Streets plan will be released soon.
Wells St between Chicago and North will indeed be resurfaced and then it will have buffered lanes put in. The time frame is resurfacing hopefully April/May and then lanes put in maybe May/June.
Dearborn PBL will get the plates put in on the bridge over the next week or so. They will be fixing the potholes and drainage issues. They'll be putting in improvements throughout the season in order to help visibility at intersections, alleys and driveways, including things like signage, green paint and more.
Bike share: Alta was now confirmed as the official bike share company we're working with. They hired the new GM for the bike share program and he came on board two days ago (I didn't catch his name). The first 300 sites have been recommended and are now under aldermanic review. They're now talking about a summer roll out, but Gabe Klein sounds hopeful to have it begun by the next MBAC meeting in mid-June.
CLOCC, the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago's Children, has a new Obesity Prevention Blueprint available online.
The LIB, League of IL Bicyclists, is developing an online bicyclist safety quiz (pretty comprehensive, though) that will be aimed at schoolkids, adult cyclists, and drivers.
What did I miss, Anne/Julie/Anyone?
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Oh, I'll add that they discussed that Milwaukee from Kinzie to Elston is getting attention because the mayor is a strong believer in its importance as a bicycling route. They are trying as hard as possible to make protected lanes of some kind possible. Once they have a design, it will be made available for review and comment. (Yay!)
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A little more detail on the bike share program: They're in the process of finalizing locations. Each location will have a map showing nearby destinations and other bike share locations. Many stations will be placed close to transit and/or car share locations to give multi-modal connectivity.
When the system is launched this year, they're planning on initial boundaries for this year's rollout of the lake on the east, Montrose (4400N) on the north, Damen (2000W) on the west and 41st (4100S) on the south. Stations won't all get set up at once. Installation will start in/near downtown and steadily expand outward into the neighborhoods. Next year's installation of additional stations will expand the geographic area a bit further out from downtown.
About protected bike lanes and related issues - if folks have suggestions, they should email them to: cdotbikes (at) cityofchicago (dot) org.
The idea of adding curbs as a physical barrier for protected bike lanes was mentioned, but that requires funding that isn't currently available.
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But wait, there's more. On the subject of bike parking, I asked about an old issue: the problem of developers/ contractors installing crappy bike racks or poorly installing good racks due to lack of an inspection/approval mechanism in the zoning code where bike rack installation is required for certain categories of new construction.
A few years ago, I was motivated to do some follow-up work on the issue after seeing a poor installation of a good rack at the new public library in my neighborhood (inspiring me to start the bike parking hall of fame/shame). At that time, these problems fell into a bureaucratic crack between the zoning department and CDOT's bike program.
Charlie Short informed us yesterday that the bike program is picking up the slack to help prevent these problems in the future. Three cheers for the folks at CDOT!
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