Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about State Policy

CDOT Reveals Plans for Chicago’s First Raised Bike Lane on Roosevelt Road

By Kristen Maddox and John Greenfield | Sep 27, 2013 | 22 Comments

At a community meeting Tuesday at Columbia College, Chicago Department of Transportation Project Director Janet Attarian outlined plans for the new Roosevelt Road streetscape from State Street to Columbus Drive. The project will include a groundbreaking new segment of sidewalk-level, two-way bicycle lane, part of a bike-friendly route to and from the lakefront. The info […]

Eyes on the Street: New Buffered Bike Lanes on Madison Street

By John Greenfield | Sep 10, 2013 | 8 Comments

Well-designed protected bike lanes are generally far superior to buffered lanes, because it provides actual physical protection from moving cars, not just paint on the road, which encourage more risk-averse people to ride. On the other hand, if protected lanes are off the table, well-executed buffered lanes are nothing to sneeze at. The Chicago Department […]

MPC: Funding the Illiana Expressway Would Be a Big Mistake

By Steven Vance | Sep 5, 2013 | 32 Comments

The Metropolitan Planning Council, a non-profit promoting economic development strategies for Chicagoland, has come out strongly against the Illiana Expressway, a 47-mile highway the Illinois Department of Transportation has proposed for the rural communities of southern Will County and northwestern Indiana. MPC released a statement yesterday highlighting numerous shortcomings in IDOT’s proposal, including vague financing […]

An Update on CDOT’s Bikeway Construction

By John Greenfield | Aug 30, 2013 | 20 Comments

We’re currently in the midst of a bike lane building boom. Earlier this year the Chicago Department of Transportation completed groundbreaking protected lanes on Milwaukee from Kinzie to Elston, which involved removing about 50 percent of the parking spaces. Buffered lanes were striped on Wells from Chicago to North. Recently CDOT completed buffered lanes on […]

IDOT Prepares to Ram Through Another Expensive Highway Project

By Steven Vance | Aug 20, 2013 | 53 Comments

The Illinois Department of Transportation is again seeking the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s help to build an expensive highway expansion that isn’t included in the region’s planning blueprint. This time, it’s not about a putting a flyover above Halsted Street and a wall in front of people’s homes, like the agency plans to do […]

Metra Headaches Continue While Quinn Forms Committee to Reform Transit

By Steven Vance | Aug 16, 2013 | 29 Comments

A fifth Metra board member gave up his post Thursday after the Chicago Tribune wrote that Stanley Rakestraw no longer lived in suburban Cook County – as required – and the person who appointed him, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle, asked him to tender resignation. Board members are resigning after allegations of double dipping (for […]

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