"Waving" hello to Jackson Boulevard, a protected bike lane that undulates

Today Grid Chicago takes a spin down Jackson Boulevard, where CDOT is installing the city's second protected bike lane (PBL) from Western to Halsted - It's 80% complete between Western and Ogden. So far the Jackson PBL is pretty different than the Kinzie lane.

 

Possibly in order to accommodate bus stops, parts of the Jackson lane undulate back and forth from being a Kinzie-style lane, next to the curb with a line of parked cars to the left, and being a "buffered" bike lane with striped pavement between bikes and moving traffic. It's a bit complicated - get the deets here:

http://gridchicago.com/2011/waving-hello-to-jackson-a-protected-bik...

 

Keep moving forward,

 

John Greenfield

 

 

 

 

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David on October 11, 2011 at 6:24am

I'm curious about something.  To me, the obvious solution here would be a two-way PBL on the north side of the street.  That would allow two-way traffic all the way to Halsted, alleviating the salmon issue, and would solve the problem of both the bus-avoiding waves and the nutty cross-the-intersection changeover at Damen. 

 

Is there just not room for that here?  Or has there been talk about two-way BPLs and CDOT has specifically rejected them as too new or too different?  

 

Permalink Reply by John Greenfield on October 11, 2011 at 6:28am
Very good question. It may be that they were worried that cyclists heading westbound in a two-way PBL on the north side of the street would be in danger of being hit by cross traffic, since drivers wouldn't be expecting bikes from that direction.
Permalink Reply by Dan Korn on October 12, 2011 at 2:54am
This is a great development, and I will enjoy riding on it to work every day.  But there's still no good westbound route out of downtown.
Permalink Reply by Gort 12-mile Pinklegneep on October 12, 2011 at 5:58am

Unfortunately the bits that are Kinzie-style are almost completely parked in. As Jackson crosses Damen, this bike lane switches from the right side of the street to the left, cutting diagonally through the Jackson/Damen intersection. This abrupt cut across busy lanes happens just in time to put you somewhat obscured behind the protective pylons and coming up fast on cars turning into the parking lot for MXC. This stretch of Jackson had been fine to bike all along, now it's got these new perils dropped in there that nearly got me hit for the first time in ages. Good grief.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on October 12, 2011 at 7:54am

I'd consider Wabash to be a decent southbound route out of the Loop.  West of that, seems like there's not much east of the river.  That Clark St. bypass at Roosevelt really ruined South Clark as an outbound bike route.  Clinton is decent.  Des Plaines is too close to the expressway.

 

Westbound, we've now got the bike lane on Madison, although that street gets seriously hairy from the River to Clinton due to Ogilvie station traffic.

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