Utility company street patching destroying bike routes
Has anyone else noticed the new style of rough, hard, concrete patching that is being done and apparently accepted by the City of Chicago, often obliterating existing bike routes.
Clark St. between Howard and Devon used to be a prime commuting route for me. In spite of many lights, they were well synchronized and you could make really good time on that part of the commute. Not so good in the evening but a great morning route.
That was until last year when some utilty tore up the street right in the bike lane and replaced it not with asphalt, but with this hard concrete. The crew that did the patch made not the slightest attempt to smooth their work out and now Clark is basically unrideable.
Now another bike lane that was part of my commute, Pratt Blvd., has gotten the same treatment.
So while the city, to great fanfare, introduces new protected bike lanes in some part of the city, they fail to enforce basic street-paving standards and lose bike lanes that have served us well for years.
Views: 2775
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Skip Montanaro 0mi on
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Even for safety reasons?
David crZven 10.6 said:...the City can't remove meter spaces.
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Permalink Reply by Adam Herstein on
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AFAIK that has yet to be determined for Ashland.
Alex Z said:I didn't realize the BRT lanes were walled off.
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Permalink Reply by Crazy David 84 Furlongs on
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The City can remove all the meters they want. But they must pay the parking meter company for this. This applies even in the case of construction. The meter company loves this. For example, the meters on Southport, due to the ready access to parking on the side streets are hardly even used fully. But during the closing of the spots for construction, the City has to pay the full amount of the meter for the full time. So if a meter is a $2,00 hr meter and active 12 hours per day, the City pays $24 per day per space for the construction. And if its permanent, its the fee going forward essentially forever. It is a VERY bad agreement written in such a way as to pretty much screw the city on everything. And any kind of change at all -- for example a State law banning government employees from writing tickets to enforce private rights -- even if fought by the City -- would result in the City paying.
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All contracts can be broken with enough cash. Kickstarter, anyone?
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Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on
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As requested:
http://www.thechainlink.org/forum/topics/ashland-selected-for-brt
Skip Montanaro 12mi said:This thread is the first this Evanstonian has heard of the Ashland BRT. If I understand it correctly (http://www.transitchicago.com/ashlandbrt/), the center lane and much of the median will be taken up with bus infrastructure, leaving one traffic lane and parallel parking in each direction. No bike lane, correct? Is there currently a bike lane on Ashland? Is there a street (or small network of streets) parallel to Ashland which could accommodate bike lanes? How are cars supposed to turn left off Ashland, make a right and go around the block?
Pointers to discussion here or elsewhere about this facility would be appreciated.
Thx...
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So, I did have brief opportunity to ask some workers this morning, and preliminary results suggest that Liz was pretty much on the money:
The rough finish is as such because:a) There's no incentive to make the effort to smoothe it
b) "finishers earn top dollar" so the seperate worker who has the magic ability to smooth the surface that nobody else on the job has is just left out of the process, as it's clear to all that the location of the patching is slated to be resurfaced anyways.
So no apparent geophysical advantage to leaving a given texture. For whatever it's worth I was told the surface we're discussing is a layer of gravel, a layer of concrete, some more gravel, and some more concrete slapped on top. Guessing part of the roughness is that some of the gravel gets mixed into the top concrete layer.
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Go Adam! I'll bet such a kickstarter could attract a fair amount of attention, at least in the local blogosphere.
Adam Herstein (5.5 mi) said:All contracts can be broken with enough cash. Kickstarter, anyone?
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Permalink Reply by Vondo on
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So just for my own clarification, when will they start handing out the free mint chocolate chip ice cream?
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Permalink Reply by Active Transportation Alliance on
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I cannot confirm nor deny that Active Trans is working to secure Blue Bunny as a major sponsor for our bike/ped advocacy work. But not our transit work, where we may or may not be approaching a to-be-named-later froyo company.
Ethan "couldn't resist" Spotts, Active Trans
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https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/cdot/auto_generated/cdo...
There are a handful of chainlinkers who seem to be able to engage him in quick and easy communication.
Steve Cohen said:OK, I'll plead ignorance: Who's Gabe Klein?
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Permalink Reply by Duppie on
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h'
So you did get a root canal then?
h' 1.0 said:As requested:
http://www.thechainlink.org/forum/topics/ashland-selected-for-brt
Skip Montanaro 12mi said:This thread is the first this Evanstonian has heard of the Ashland BRT. If I understand it correctly (http://www.transitchicago.com/ashlandbrt/), the center lane and much of the median will be taken up with bus infrastructure, leaving one traffic lane and parallel parking in each direction. No bike lane, correct? Is there currently a bike lane on Ashland? Is there a street (or small network of streets) parallel to Ashland which could accommodate bike lanes? How are cars supposed to turn left off Ashland, make a right and go around the block?
Pointers to discussion here or elsewhere about this facility would be appreciated.
Thx...
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