Starting the Mayor on the Right Foot

The Active Transportation Alliance sent out to all members a form letter, already composed and addressed, to Mayor Lori Lightfoot...all it needs is your signature.  Topics include:

•  Safe Streets Fund for better lit crosswalks, curb protected bike lanes, and bus stop bump-outs

•  Bike Lanes:  at least 100 miles of new on-street bikeways by 2023, including 35 miles of protected bike lanes

•  Chicago River Trail:  a continuous system on the North, Central, and Southwest Sides

•  Bus Lanes:  50 miles of new transit-priority streets by 2023

I guess ATA thinks its members are a bunch of illiterate morons who can't parse a sentence.  As a long-time Chicago cyclist, none of these are MY priorities...are they yours?   I suggest you delete the lengthy prepared text, and write your own thoughts.  Some ideas I'd suggest mentioning:

1.  Just like Governor Pritzker who wants to double the Illinois gas tax, double the Chicago city gas tax too...gas is now selling at a ridiculously low price, when adjusted for inflation and compared with past periods.  It is a very opportune time to take a bite of this sugar-plum, improve City finances, relieve Global Warming, and reduce congestion.  Refer to Bill Nye, The Science Guy.

2.  Name a Cycling Czar of Chicago who works 24/7 to make biking in Chicago safer and more popular.

3.  With the Cycling Czar, personally review EVERY cyclist's death in Chicago and the disposition of each case:  determining that such an accident will never happen again

4.  Survey usage of existing Protected Bike Lanes and consider dismantling those that do not attract at least 50 cyclists/hour during rush periods, and replacing them with paint.

5.  Implement Congestion Pricing in downtown Chicago similar to that being considered by several other major US cities.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Filka Bean on May 20, 2019 at 3:53pm

Thanks for sharing this link, clp. I do support the suggestions of the ATA, for what it’s worth. And i think your suggestions are interesting as well; what do you see the bike czar doing, exactly? And why spend money dismantling protected lanes? If the network was expanded to better connect those lanes they might see more use, don’t you think?

Permalink Reply by Jeremy on May 21, 2019 at 4:06am
Regarding the city gas tax, the city needs to take measures to ensure that airlines are paying the tax. Yes, those taxes will just get passed onto ticket purchases, but it is still a large amount of money that needs to be collected. In the past, airlines have set up "fuel purchasing offices" in Sycamore, IL to buy fuel to avoid city taxes.
Permalink Reply by Mark on May 21, 2019 at 9:42am

+1

"My position on Protected Bike Lanes is that many good biking routes (Dodge, Clybourne, etc) with adequate shoulders to ride safely, have been cluttered with glass-littered, cramped and unsafe PBLs."

PBLs can never be reasonably maintained and as a result force riders through a narrow collection of debris and standing water/ice.

Permalink Reply by David P. on May 21, 2019 at 4:41am

It's not particularly important whether the ATA expresses your priorities (or mine), either as an individual or as a cyclist. THE ATA does not represent only cyclists (never mind only one-note John Forrester obsessvies, thank goodness) - they represent everyone in Chicago in their use of non-car transportation and movement. 

Also, buying gas for your car in WI or IN or the suburbs is not "dodging taxes".

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on May 21, 2019 at 10:13am

Thank you.

Permalink Reply by Harry Lee on May 21, 2019 at 1:23pm

I agree with all of the ATA's priorities except for the bus lane thing. I mean, I'm not against it or anything, but would rather see some of the rail-focused Transit Future initiatives like extending the Brown Line to connect to the Blue and building a N/S route that parallels Cicero get some attention finally.

I'm fine with doubling all of the gas taxes everywhere, but don't really care much about a Cycling Czar and don't want PBLs dismantled anywhere. We should def do congestion pricing, too- anything reasonable that brings in revenue and disincentivizes driving is aces with me.

Permalink Reply by Charlie Short 2.9 on May 22, 2019 at 7:41am

Actually you have a ton (maybe not a ton, you don't have a ton of people working at CDOT anyway) of qualified, trained city planners with big city experience with creating safe bike infrastructure working all over the city.

This Cycling Czar business is a false flag and disregards any semblance of organization that city has in place to implement any projects.

You could not be more wrong about the "squeaky wheel" theory. While there is a ton of ink spilled about the biggest projects, hundreds of miles of miles of bike lanes were designed and redesigned in the last 8 years.

Permalink Reply by PurpleFemme on May 22, 2019 at 11:16am

+100

Permalink Reply by Charlie Short 2.9 on May 23, 2019 at 7:07am

Yeah, I worked for the "bike man" at CDOT and after Mayor Daley completed his first round of projects, he was forgotten. You want numbers for specific things? I'll give them to you. I haven't worked at CDOT for two years and the info is pretty easy to come by. Go to any MBAC meeting and you can get the phone number and email for anyone who works on bikes.

Having ONE person means there's only one person to ignore about bike issues, and it means the bandwidth that person has is incredibly limited. The biggest mistake people make in Chicago is assuming that there is always ONE person making and executing a decision.

All that said, your disappointment in the bike infrastructure and execution and communication of that infrastructure isn't unique and your suggestions and ideas help expand the dialogue around what's possible in bikes.

I don't have all the answers, and I know my answers pose more questions, but I was around for a lot of big changes and they only happened when persistent, dedicated folks reached all of us. Maybe I should get back into it, but I'm happy to answer real questions about why things are happening or not and help people connect with the folks that make the decisions.

Let me put it another way: if you're trying to burn down a house in a wind storm, I'd be happy to help; you just have to stop wasting all of your matches.

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on May 23, 2019 at 8:21am

"Yeah, I worked for the "bike man" at CDOT..."

Who was that? Ben Gomberg?

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on July 2, 2019 at 5:13am

Ben went back to Canada was got a similar job with a large Ontario municipality.

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on May 22, 2019 at 4:48am

An Express Bus running between the Kimball Brown Line and the Jefferson Park Blue Line up and down Lawrence Avenue, with perhaps only one or two stops in between would be just as effective and far less expensive and disruptive than trying to join the two with a rail line.

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