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wluw fm 88.7 chicago journalist doing reaction piece: police are planning on enforcing law that cyclists are not to ride on sidewalk

I want to know your thoughts on this! You must be willing to go on record either via telephone or in person. and trust me, if you want to know personally as a cyclist myself i applaud this but curious as to how they will enforce it. Anyway my deadline no exceptions is monday 10 pm. I'm going out to places like the lakeshore path, Handlebar, Blue Frog Bar, downtown, trying to find actual people riding on the sidewalk to talk to me and just anyone on the street who is willing to talk to me. And of course the police.

Anyway, also I wanted to throw this idea out here. my friends are unresponsive via Facebook probably because they think I am crazy it will work. or, they don't check Facebook often. but if you guys are interested:

For an op-editorial trying to collect several anecdotes about bike accidents:

Tell your friends that even if you file a police report, come to me also about any nasty encounters occurring via bike vs car. As you know, most
of the time the police isn't on your side. Don't underestimate the
power of the press!

I know these things occur regularly and I'm also checking back for these incidents via online forum but not
everything gets posted. I'm hoping by the time I have enough anecdotes I
can get laws changed :) Besides, you know you want to see your name
published :D

So what if the press has an agenda. Don't we all?

I just heard another story last night and I am getting sick of it. Thing
is though, I have to know about these things as soon as they occur, like
within the next month or so or it may not be considered news worthy by
my editor

Please forward this to all your cycling friends!

I'm thinking of making a closed private facebook group where people can
post.

- Theresa Campagna
Reporter and dj for WLUW
"b5279ea8be98aef36f732ec79a242439", event)''>http://wluw.org/sta...
(773) 273-9647 



P.S.: I am thinking maybe bike lanes need to be redesigned like the ones in Montreal:


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Tessa,

Thanks for being on our side!

I'd say if you want to find people riding on sidewalks to interview, you should head out to some of the business districts in working class neighborhoods-- 26th Street west of Kedzie, 18th street west of Racine, Cermak west of Wood for example. There you'll find 'real' Chicagoans riding their bikes to get from place to place, riding on the sidewalk partly because they don't feel safe in the street and partly because they've never heard that it's illegal.

Personally, even though I firmly believe that the best option for many Chicago cyclists in many places is the sidewalk, I have a hard time getting riled up about the threat of another police "crackdown"-- these things are always 95% media hype and go away very quickly.

FYI the places I've hear of cyclists getting ticketed for Sidewalk riding:

-Division in the first few blocks west of Ashland

-Sheridan north of where the drive ends.

Supposedly there was going to be this huge crackdown in Lakeview about 3 years ago but I never heard of any tickets personally.

I'm right with you in terms of the need for physically separated bikeways-- we're just way too vulnerable as long as we're sharing the space with cars.
56th Street west of Lake Park would be another good hotspot. The street leads straight to the lake path and given the neighborhood you can get an interesting mix of working class people, professionals and random folks riding on the sidewalk.
I would like to see The Hipster Highway (Milwaukee Ave) become this way all the way up to Milwaukee! Much more doable than my Velo-city dream.
I prefer this photo from the League of American Bicyclists.

Juan Dominguez said:
I would like to see The Hipster Highway (Milwaukee Ave) become this way all the way up to Milwaukee! Much more doable than my Velo-city dream.
Attachments:
sigh...only in my dreams. way to be classy though cutting out someone else's watermark LOL! is this image photoshopped? it can't be! maybe? it must be in europe somewhere if anything. let's all move there now! i wish it were like in that mary poppins movie where we could jump onto the scene. but we'd probably have to go 3 at a time at most otherwise we'd all still get run over with a car. or or i suppose we could, in a fantasyland mind you, just ride our bikes into the screen...

Gary Gilbert said:
I prefer this photo from the League of American Bicyclists.

The photo comes from Andy Clarke's presentation at the League of Michigan Cyclists Bike Summit. Slide 28 Andy is president of League of American Bicyclists.

tessa said:
sigh...only in my dreams. way to be classy though cutting out someone else's watermark LOL! is this image photoshopped? it can't be! maybe? it must be in europe somewhere if anything. let's all move there now! i wish it were like in that mary poppins movie where we could jump onto the scene. but we'd probably have to go 3 at a time at most otherwise we'd all still get run over with a car. or or i suppose we could, in a fantasyland mind you, just ride our bikes into the screen...

Gary Gilbert said:
I prefer this photo from the League of American Bicyclists.

Great idea on the interviews. I hope you get a lot of insight into the thoughts of riders on sidewalks.

IMHO: As opposed to using limited resources on enforcing cyclists to not ride on the sidewalk, how about paying a bit more attention to the cars driving in the bike lanes and harassing cyclists?

If people felt safer on the streets (and knew the laws), they would avoid the sidewalks. I am not a sidewalk rider normally, but I will get my butt out of the road if I feel unsafe with the traffic and aggressive drivers. I would much rather argue about a ticket with a cop than pick asphalt out of my skin and broken bones.

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