Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about CDOT

Highlights From the March Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council Meeting

By John Greenfield | Mar 15, 2013 | 6 Comments

The quarterly Mayor’s Bike Advisory Council meetings, held on the 11th floor of City Hall, are an excellent way to get up to speed on local cycling initiatives. At Wednesday’s meeting Mike Amsden, who manages the Chicago Department of Transportation’s bikeways projects, discussed the agency’s proposal to build protected bike lanes on Milwaukee Avenue between […]

CDOT Reorganizes With an Increased Focus on Complete Streets

By John Greenfield | Mar 13, 2013 | 5 Comments

For weeks, rumors have been circulating that there has been a re-shuffling of job responsibilities at the Chicago Department of Transportation, but the agency hadn’t made an official announcement about the changes. Most notably, word on the street was that Ben Gomberg, Chicago’s bicycle program coordinator since 1996, was no longer managing the day-to-day operations […]

Why Chicago Is Lagging Behind Other Cities on Bike Parking Corrals

By John Greenfield | Mar 8, 2013 | 38 Comments

Not surprisingly, Portland, Oregon, leads the nation in on-street bike parking corrals, with 97 installed since 2004 and about 20 more going in each year. San Francisco, which installed its first corrals on Valencia Street in May 2010, now has 32 of them. New York City, which began installing corrals in August 2011, currently has […]

It’s Up to Chicago to Set a Bold New Standard for American BRT

By John Greenfield | Mar 4, 2013 | 11 Comments

“We knew how important it was for federal policy makers to see innovation and new ideas bubbling up from important cities around the country,” said Nick Turner, managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation at a bus rapid transit roundtable last Friday. The foundation has provided roughly $2.8 million in grants to Chicago’s BRT program for […]

CTA and CDOT Unveil Proposed Designs for Central Loop BRT Corridor

By John Greenfield | Feb 20, 2013 | 41 Comments

Chicago just got a step closer to first-class bus rapid transit. Today the CTA and the Chicago Department of Transportation released proposed lane configurations for the Central Loop East-West Transit Corridor, a downtown circulator route connecting Union Station with Navy Pier, as well as renderings for a new transit center next to the train station. […]

CDOT Targets 50 Sites Near Parks and Schools for Ped Safety Fixes in 2013

By Steven Vance | Feb 12, 2013 | 3 Comments

The Chicago Department of Transportation plans to implement pedestrian safety measures at 50 high-priority sites near schools and parks this year, the agency revealed at last week’s meeting of the Mayor’s Pedestrian Advisory Council. The changes will include the addition of speeding enforcement cameras, high-visibility crosswalks, and signs to show drivers how fast they’re traveling. […]

Eyes on the Street: Crew Out in the Cold Fixing Bike Lane Cave-In

By Steven Vance | Feb 1, 2013 | 4 Comments

Nine days ago Streetsblog forwarded South Shore resident Deborah Harrington’s photo of a pavement cave-in in the bike lane at 7300 S South Shore Drive to the Department of Transportation. Today Deborah excitedly emailed me some photos she took of the site, where Department of Water Management crews are now diligently working in 10°F weather […]

Making the Whole Route to School Safer for Walking and Biking

By Steven Vance | Feb 1, 2013 | 6 Comments

Earlier this week, the Chicago Tribune published an analysis of Chicago traffic crash data, finding that “from 2007 through 2011, nearly 1,700 youths, ages 5 to 18, were struck by vehicles in Chicago within about a block of a school.” Half of all pedestrian injuries to children occur near schools, and it’s great to have […]

The Problem With Wolf Point and Its 1,285 Parking Spaces

By Steven Vance | Jan 30, 2013 | 23 Comments

The Wolf Point site, just south of the Apparel Mart and Chicago Sun-Times building at the confluence of the Chicago River’s three branches, has been begging for more productive uses for decades. Momentum has been building since developers associated with the Kennedy family proposed a plan for three towers at Wolf Point in 2007, and […]

Branching Out: The North Branch Trail to Extend Further South, East

By John Greenfield | Jan 23, 2013 | 11 Comments

Local cyclists have long dreamed of a complete network of bicycle paths along the various branches of the Chicago River. This fall we’ll be moving three miles closer to that goal when the Cook County Forest Preserve District begins construction on a southern extension of the North Branch Trail. Meanwhile, the trail is also being […]

To Prevent More Traffic Deaths, Chicago Needs Better Crash Data

By Steven Vance | Jan 23, 2013 | 13 Comments

On Monday the Chicago Sun-Times noted the large uptick in pedestrian fatalities in 2012 compared to the three years prior. Last year, 48 pedestrians were killed by drivers in Chicago, compared to 35 in 2009, 30 in 2010, and 31 in 2011. Understanding the underlying causes is difficult: Right now, there is troublingly little information from […]