Who designed this bike lane on Roosevelt Road?

Have you seen the new bike lane on Roosevelt Road and Michigan Ave.? Why did the designers place a bike lane coming out of Grant Park and place the bike lane on the sidewalk that WILL BE CROWDED with pedestrians? The bike lane continues west to the Roosevelt Rd. CTA elevated tracks. I feel that this a disaster waiting to happen? Could they have not placed it in a better location? 

Views: 1034

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Paul Lazzaro on March 21, 2016 at 1:03pm

This would work fine many places in W. Europe.  I hope it works here.  But I suspect Americans will not understand (or respect) it.

Permalink Reply by Cheryl on March 25, 2016 at 5:42am

Based on the Kinzie bike lane, I am guessing they will not.

Permalink Reply by Tom Z on March 21, 2016 at 2:35pm

I wonder if white lines along the sides would help make it look more like a bike lane. Though, you would think the green paint would be enough.

Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on March 22, 2016 at 3:11am

This design sensibility coming soon to a LFT near you.

Permalink Reply by Bruce on March 24, 2016 at 10:55am

I ride here almost every day (morning and evening commute).  It's sometimes annoying but not that bad.  I would rather have stayed in the street, I agree. Now the street's just a little too narrow, though. 

Permalink Reply by Waymond Smith on March 25, 2016 at 12:49pm

I wonder how this will work during the peak of the tourist season (Summer).

Permalink Reply by Mike Zumwalt on March 26, 2016 at 9:34am
Yeah,and why are the crosswalks blue with giant words in them? What we want is people crossing Mi ave looking down reading instead of watching for cars,bikes.
Permalink Reply by john89 on March 26, 2016 at 9:15pm

Sometimes it is also annoying for me. But nothing to do!

Permalink Reply by RobertW on March 31, 2016 at 8:19pm

Hi there -  I lived in Chicago for many years, now live in Seattle.  We have a bike lane much like this in a busy part of Seattle (South Lake Union) on Mercer Street.  And it works quite well.  More info here: http://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2015/05/04/mercer-bike-lanes-open-th...    The context of course is different.  So not sure it will translate as well.  And not sure why you would do the crosswalks in blue... That seems confusing.. But good to see Chicago continuing to try new ways to be more bike-friendly.

Permalink Reply by mschaus on April 6, 2016 at 5:08am

While I agree in the end this was a little silly, I think I can understand what the designers were after. I live about a block away and use this stretch almost every time I leave my house -- gapers standing around has never really been an issue. Fast forward to <1% of the time when there is a busy Soldier Field event, etc., and now the sidewalk has a dramatically higher pedestrian capacity. In that case we can act like normal cyclists and just use the asphalt. The cars won't be moving during these times anyway, so it's especially easy.

I'm a fan of painted, non-barriered like lanes so that the total road has the most flexibility and I can ride in the road when there is ice/truck/blockage in the bike lanes. But here I understand they wanted to increase peak pedestrian capacity, giving the sidewalk the most flexibility.

Keep riding!

Mike

RSS

Groups

© 2008-2016   The Chainlink Community, L.L.C.   Powered by

Disclaimer  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service