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Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on May 11, 2011 at 7:54am

I haven't seen this yet. Thanks for posting it. This is a great article. I never thought it could happen. F*** Portland indeed!

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Permalink Reply by Duppie on May 11, 2011 at 8:18am

Courtesy of Active Trans' facebook page:

 

http://www.stevevance.net/planning/that-was-easy-wicker-park-buckto...

 

It includes pictures of what this might look like

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Permalink Reply by Ash L. on May 11, 2011 at 10:20am

Yep, Steve always has the low-down. These racks look surprisingly high-security and good quality. I had intense fears they'd juts plop down a crappy elementary school grill rack and call it a day.

 

My concern now is about making a reliable barrier between moving traffic and the rack so wayward cars don't take out 12 bikes in one swoop.

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Permalink Reply by igz on May 11, 2011 at 10:26am

good point, Ash

Ash L. said:

My concern now is about making a reliable barrier between moving traffic and the rack so wayward cars don't take out 12 bikes in one swoop.

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Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on May 11, 2011 at 11:33am

"...the first dedicated on-street bike parking will be unveiled at the Milwaukee, North and Damen intersection, turning four parking spaces on Milwaukee into bike parking."

 

The rack is 15 feet long (3 feet wide) and will only take up the space of approximately 1.5 car parking spaces (on Chicago streets, there's no length definition of a parallel parking spaces, unlike other cities that demarcate theirs). The other spaces in question will probably be just removed from the "available parking inventory" (they are currently non-metered spaces without any regulations or parking controls) and may have bollards in them. 

I'm not sure how the fire hydrant will play into the installation - that's why I have two orange lines marking possible locations.

 

If you want to know who to thank, it would be the following people:

• Christopher Gagnon and others at CDOT
• 1st Ward Alderman Moreno
• The commissioners of the Wicker Park-Bucktown (WPB) SSA
• WPB program manager, Eleanor Mayer
• All of the businesses that pay into the SSA fund (that would be everyone in the district)
• Eh, I'm probably missing someone

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Permalink Reply by ilter on May 11, 2011 at 1:02pm

what i don`t understand is why “F*** Portland"..

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on May 11, 2011 at 1:43pm

Interesting.  I can't wait to see how this is finally implemented.  Hopefully there will be a bollard or two to protect the racks.

 

I wonder who will be the first rider to get "doored" by another rider pushing their bike out of the racks and into the bike lane?

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Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on May 11, 2011 at 2:30pm

I think it's a thumbing the nose at the U.S. city that is constantly held out as the gold standard of bike friendliness, and the epitome of bicycle smugness. Portland is seemingly invoked as the postscript to any statement or article about efforts by any municipality to develop bike infrastructure. "Cedar Rapids, Iowa is getting a sheltered bike lane on main street? Well, it's still no Portland."   

ilter said:

what i don`t understand is why “F*** Portland"..

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Doom on May 11, 2011 at 2:53pm

I don't know if he'd put it exactly like this, but Rahm was probably thinking something like, "Portland is an overblown small town with hardly any children or people of color. We can crush them in bike-friendliness, number of annoying girls who sleep with stuffed animals, MLS attendance or anything else they take pride in without putting any real effort into it. F*** them."

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Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on May 11, 2011 at 5:48pm

There is no bike lane here. What you see in the photo above is the "shared lane marking," often called a sharrow (although not typically called that in Chicago).

James Baum said:

Interesting.  I can't wait to see how this is finally implemented.  Hopefully there will be a bollard or two to protect the racks.

 

I wonder who will be the first rider to get "doored" by another rider pushing their bike out of the racks and into the bike lane?

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on May 12, 2011 at 1:18am

All roads, marked or not, have "bike lanes" IMHO  -call it what you will.   Anywhere I'm riding is the "bike lane" from my perspective :-P

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Permalink Reply by igz on May 12, 2011 at 2:12am

another alternative to bike parking...vertical parking lots...

 

http://webecoist.com/2011/05/11/vertical-parking-lots-brilliant-urb...

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