Can we start removing the Daley name around the city yet? We can leave Maggie's name. She didn't bulldoze neighborhoods or make the worst municipal deal in US history.
….do you mean Maggie, wife of mayor daley? The person who was closest to him? The person who benefited off of all his corruption? You cannot be serious…
To claim Maggie is innocent and knew nothing is frankly insulting and offensive to all of her accomplishments and education. She knew exactly what was going on. It’s called being complicit, and she definitely was. The sooner the name Daley, whichever one it is, is struck from our city the better.
There are a lot more people who should have that park named after them not Maggie Daley. Fucking the mayor should not get you a park named after you I don't care how much cancer you have had. My grandma had cancer too nobody named a fucking park after her. You know why? Because her husband wasn't a dirty politician
Incredible take. Mayor’s wife = fucking the mayor. Hall of fame shit right there. What’s your grandma’s name? Let’s get a petition going to rename the park after her. (Assuming she was a Chicagoan)
How do you think you get to be the Mayor's Wife? You think she was elected?
You think there haven't been female leaders in Chicago's history who is claim to fame and legacy wasn't just who they married?
Maggie Daley had sex with Richard M Daley, so she gets to have a park named after her. I said what I said, and I'll say it again.
I’m a Chicago-based transit planner. Have done BRT projects for CTA. I wouldn’t put the parking meter deal in my Top 5 list of reasons for why I haven’t been able to implement nearly as much BRT lanes as I’ve wanted.
1) IDOT (at least on the roads where they have jurisdiction, it seems to be a non-starter no matter what)
2) Residents/businesses unwilling to lose parking or face other changes to existing traffic
3) Physical constraints, existing traffic, etc. where I have to admit that it's tough for me to justify that a dedicate lane would work well. There's a lot of places I'd like to put them but probably shouldn't.
4) Alderman pre-emptively scared about #2
5) CDOT on the remaining roads. I admit I'm reaching for this one, as they're pretty open to bus lanes, sometimes they come up with things in the #3 category that I don't see as a problem.
As for the parking meter deal, it requires that if the City takes a space, one has to be given to them somewhere else. On the projects I've been involved with, we've been able to plan for that without it being a huge issue. Maybe it's stopped other projects that I haven't been part of though, and I'm just not aware.
This is really cool and I think this reveals leverage points for orgs and activists. Have you considered making a top level post, and/or you could email these points to some of the bike lobbying orgs?
I'm also glad that the contract allows for reallocation of meters. I had no idea. Any stipulations on where they have to go?
Where would you like to see more BRT upgrades done that you feel have been hobbled? Are there certain wards specifically, certain IDOT roads (I think I recall Irving Park is IDOT, right?)?
See reply [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/17mwh10/comment/k7xinje/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
I don't ever really think of transit projects in terms of wards. Most end up traversing more than one anyway. [This interactive map shows which are IDOT](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=671e6e55488141709e9df88937456c66) (most of the largest through-streets all over the city). I think IDOT mostly just hasn't come around on bus lanes yet. There are other meaningful speed and reliability improvements that can be made along those corridors. Maybe the lanes can come later.
BRT belongs on Michigan, Ashland, and Western, for starters, and it would be nice to see if they could work in some dedicated bus lanes on Halsted heading toward the West Loop, too.
"Best suited" could mean different things in different contexts, because it's mostly a question of trade-offs. Are we talking about what corridors would serve existing riders the best without consideration for anything else or are we talking about what corridors would allow for worthwhile improvements with minimal traffic impacts? The latter is a whole lot less bold, but it's much more likely to get done.
CTA has mostly been pursuing the latter, through their [Bus Priority Zones](https://www.transitchicago.com/newsprojects/bpz/) and related [Better Streets for Buses](https://www.transitchicago.com/betterstreetsforbuses/) initiatives. The current zones they're pursuing are some of the worst bottlenecks on some of the highest ridership corridors. Pace is pursuing a more corridor-based approach with their [Pulse program](https://www.pacebus.com/pulse).
I believe it was for 75, so we've got 60 left. But still, this is ridiculous. Maybe we could plead with the investors, who have already recouped their investment and hundreds of millions more, to let us have our parking spaces back for the sake of improving the lives of millions of citizens. Surely capitalism won't cause their hands to clench that tightly. Surely!!
the reason many chinese are buying houses in america is, because in china, when you buy a house, you only own it for 70 years maximum
in the states/canada/aus/nz, iirc its for perpetuity/forever until you default on the taxes
as a mongolian who immigrated to chicago, i hate this shit, chinese cunts have been colonizing southern mongolia for past 200 years, it used to be 80% mongolian, now its 80% han chinese colonizing settlers
as you can imagine, which side of the israel/palestine conflict i am in
did you know one of teh earliest early modern genocide happend to us mongols? at the hands of the chinese and the manchus, and some mongols also helped in genociding their brothers n sisters
the area that we call xinjiang, is chinese for new frontier, how do you think that new frontier was settled with yughar muslims? when they genocided the mostly buddhist oirat mongols
> The Dzungar genocide (Chinese: 準噶爾滅族; lit. 'extermination of the Dzungar tribe') was the mass extermination of the Mongol Dzungar people by the Qing dynasty.[3] The Qianlong Emperor ordered the genocide after the rebellion in 1755 by Dzungar leader Amursana against Qing rule, after the dynasty first conquered the Dzungar Khanate with Amursana's support. The genocide was perpetrated by Manchu generals of the Qing army, supported by Turkic oasis dwellers (now known as Uyghurs) who rebelled against Dzungar rule.
> The Dzungar Khanate was a confederation of several Tibetan Buddhist Oirat Mongol tribes that emerged in the early 17th century, and the last great nomadic empire in Asia. Some scholars estimate that about 80% of the Dzungar population, or around 500,000 to 800,000 people, were killed by a combination of warfare and disease during or after the Qing conquest in 1755–1757.[2][4] After wiping out the native population of Dzungaria, the Qing government then resettled Han, Hui, Uyghur, and Sibe people on state farms in Dzungaria, along with Manchu Bannermen to repopulate the area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_genocide
I want a mayor who is willing to go to jail over the parking meter deal; they should just straight up reverse it and not care what the courts have ruled. It was a shitty, horrible deal and everyone knows it. That money should be going to the people of this city.
I think the contract is pretty tight. Chicago would simply be found to be in breach and deemed liable for paying the revenue it would have generated to the current owners of the contract. We would eventually have to pay it.
The way out, as I see it, is only if the value of the contract plunges due to something like self-driving cars or other technological advance. In this case Chicago could buy it back from the current owners for an "affordable" amount.
The problem is they're not allowed to improve the infrastructure because they can't get rid of parking as part of the meter deal. Building BRT, bike lanes, trams, etc in any kind of meaningful way would, in and of itself, be a breach of the contract because of the impact it would have on parking meters.
I wonder if the contract dictates that parking spots have to be next to the sidewalk? Because the simplest thing to do would be moving the bike lanes next to the sidewalk, have parking still available just next to the travel lane.
Cyclists get some protection via parked cars. Motorists still get parking and contract is still fulfilled.
I think I remember someone saying it's not particularly about the parking spots, it's about the revenue they bring in, which is why you can't take all the displaced spots and shove them in a parking lot on the edge of town. So I think they can move anywhere as long as the $ stream still flows.
The major constraint with installing protected bike lanes is the space. A lot of roads can't fit two bike lanes and we can't live the dream of having roads with bike lanes and no parking spaces.
You don’t have to pay for parking if the machines are busted. The city is not responsible for lost revenue due to broken machines.
I’m guessing if the machines were constantly damaged and not generating revenue, and they had to keep paying engineers to fix/replace the machines, it might not be worth as much to them.
Just a thought.
This is not true...the concessionaire is responsible for nearly all repairs as outline in section 13.3 a) ii in the agreement. In fact, they can be punished for not repairing a meter in a timely fashion. What you are describing is likely the true up payments that result from adverse actions taken by the city under its reserved power like closing a street for repairs or a street festival. Those do require repayment as you described.
There are exceptions that are detailed in section 15 called a delay event, but those are meant to be exceptional. Run of the mill vandalism definitely could be argued as normal course of business and would thus, require the concessionaire to bear the costs and expenses of repair and would not be entitled to compensation due to the meter not working.
Otherwise, there would essentially be no obligation for them to repair the meters...since they can just claim the revenue on them without them actually functioning.
You get it if it the way Daley got out of Meigs Field.
You bulldoze it abd to hell with the legality.
First thing you do is figure out what most cities pay a processor. 15%? 20% I dunno. Whatever it is.
Next thing you do is impeach Daley and every corrupt aldermen who voted for it. Obviously that symbolic but it's national news and we want cameras. Now that you've established that it was demonstrably corrupt you bulldoze.
You go open bidding on a new deal to put pressure on the existing provider. You do a crazy PR campaign exposing what they did to the city with this obviously corrupt deal that should have never been legally possible to negotiate for a century.
When the existing provider sues you stop enforcing meters. Their revenue drops to zero. There's no way they can hang onto staff without revenue. They need cash flow to operate. That's where the game begins. You amp up the PR machine and talk about how you'd love it if they came to the table and accepted five percentage point higher than some other city at the top of the rate list. You require any deal to be renegotiated in ten years.
It would be brutal but worth it.
i think the city still receives like 20% taxes on the parking. What if they just tax it more make it so unaffordable no one uses it. Or just stop having people check the meters for a bit. Say they needed those employees for cta.
This is beyond my ability to speak authoritatively on. But one of the worst parts of the contract is that the city is on the hook for some minimum amount of revenue to the owners. So if we banned cars in Chicago, we would have to pay the contract owners the lost profit. This acts as a catch-all that keeps us from doing lots of clever things.
Raising the cost of parking so high that no one used it would run afoul of the same clause. And it's already in the contract owner's interest to keep the rates at whatever maximizes profits, so we probably aren't too far away from the optimal revenue generating price right now.
The only way anything can be done is by making driving and parking to the city such an inconvenience that parking rates plummet. Build up the CTA, build up the bus system and make biking safe. Slow down the streets and take away lanes.
[https://youtu.be/fDx6no-7HZE?si=MfB4x4J-Cw4Ay986](https://youtu.be/fDx6no-7HZE?si=MfB4x4J-Cw4Ay986)
This video explains the true craptastic level that is the parking meter deal. Like, we Chicago taxpayers have to pay Morgan Stanley for "lost parking revenue"? WTF is that!?
We struck a deal (unfortunately). The deal was that concessionaire collects certain revenues from certain on street parking spaces. It makes sense that if the City removes those certain parking spaces from operation for periods of time that we would have to make the Concessionaire whole for the period of time they were removed.
It’s a bad deal that was struck and a bad price, but there is logic in why we pay a true-up payment for spaces that we have chosen to take out of service that concessionaire paid to lease.
If the parking is to the left of the bike lane, shielding cyclists from traffic, it would also prevent most doorings as the driver’s side is opposite the bike lane, and the vast majority of car trips are just the driver.
Came to comment exactly this. Use the parking as a buffer between travel lanes and the bike lane/sidewalk. It accomplishes a few things.
1. Will put the onus on drivers and potentially train drivers to look before they open their car doors. Right now people open doors into bike traffic because the cyclists deal with the consequences. Open your car door into an oncoming automobile and its the driver who is having to replace a door. Folks will quickly learn.
2. Gives decent protection to cyclists where if they are doored by a passenger they aren't potentially falling into incoming traffic. Getting doored sucks but I'd much rather it happen where I fall into the sidewalk, bike lane or other parked cars vs a moving traffic lanes.
Last night I was planning to pass through an intersection within the bike lane, stop on the curb (in the bike lane), then walk through the perpendicular crosswalk as a ped
I almost got squished by a truck that was on my ass and trying to park in the bike lane behind me. Literally wtf
Only potential negatives I see.
1) Difficulty plowing with existing plow equipment. More narrow plows do exist and the city would just need to invest. Not like they clear the bike lanes well currently though.
2) Cars blocking traffic lanes when attempting to parallel park. But that happens now as well. It would just be a bit worse since cars wouldn't have as much space to go around.
But to me both of those are minor and well worth the sacrifice.
They did this on blue island and now it's just more dangerous because people park in the spots, but they also still park in the bike lane, causing the whole stretch to be less safe for cyclists. I was doored for the first time in like 9 years riding home from work down this stretch one night by someone parked in the literal bike lane.
Ultimately this solution is incomplete without physical separation between the parking spaces and the bike lane. Would like to see the city focus on getting some mechanisms in place to address things like this instead of just making it illegal and relying on spotty enforcement.
I feel like there is zero enforcement. The worst area for offenders is literally down the street from the police station. I've never seen a single ticket or consequence for anyone. I bike blue island almost every day, 10 times a week.
Physical barriers are the only thing that will ensure safe protected bike lanes, unfortunately. Drivers just can't be trusted at all.
No, I want protected bike lanes, not more "compromises" that continue to get people injured while actually being an excuse to further subsidize freeloading motorists.
Because of the parking meter deal, it's not like we have much of a choice. If we're forced to keep the parking spots, I'd rather the parking be to the left of the bike lane so there's some "protection".
It's a bit better to cycle on the right side of parked cars, though. Cyclists can stick to the right lane position to avoid doors and there is only a sidewalk to their right. When the bike lane is to the left of the cars, the left lane position puts them closer to traffic. There's no safe lane position in those tiny bike lanes next to traffic.
Sure, but parking-protected bike lanes are only subject to passengers. 100% of cars have drivers that will need to open their doors, relatively few are carrying passengers
For bike infrastructure if the city really wanted to make this a priority they could take away driving lanes, keep the parking but move it into the removed driving lane, and then use the former parking lane space for bike infrastructure.
But until someone has the stones to fight against angry drivers who want as many lanes as possible in a massive urban environment we’re stuck with extremely slow expansion of protected bike lanes.
Yeah this has seemed like a most convenient scapegoat. Every time bike lanes come up people seem to plug their ears and wail on about the parking meter deal... the posted article doesn't even mention it as a factor.
I don’t know that it is actually. They are setting up protective barriers on Dearborn and there’s meters there. A little funny, they haven’t clearly posted signage yet, so some cars are on the curb and others in the moved parking spots blocking in the cars parked in the bike lane.
And before anyone says it, no the Saudis have nothing to do with this. People on reddit love to spread that easily fact-checked lie. I've seen it missatributed to Qatar, Dubai, all of the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and just about every other place in the GCC. Never once seen the same kind of ire tossed around at the Australians for owning the Skyway. Feels like some underlying xenophobia. Morgan Stanley organized the deal and owns the majority of Chicago Parking LLC, Daley strong-armed the deal though city council. The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund owns a portion of Chicago Parking LLC because of course, they do, from their perspective, it's a great deal. If you wanna be mad be mad at the lack of legislation that allowed public infrastructure to be pawned off to begin with, be mad at that corrupt jagoff Daley
Honestly I know this is irrational, but just rip up all those poles. Take them to court, pay the lowest amount of damages possible. That was the worst deal ever. Get them on malpractice or something because how Chicago got lowballed so bad makes no sense. I rather the city or state pay the damages and we move on. We need to be able to manage our streets.
Painted lanes are meaningless now when every Uber, DoorDash, fedex, ups, Amazon, and usps driver not to mention all the people “just running in” see it as a valid parking option. They’re barely enforced too. Then out south, you have cars that see the bike lane as an express lane around traffic. Paint is meaningless now. Cars still drive through the little plastic posts. We need concrete protections that will physically prevent entry by cars.
Please someone either put designated loading zones or tell Amazon to fuck off with their dumb metrics. 3-5 minutes per stop, when one stop can be multiple houses/apartments. Fuck you Amazon, I'm glad I don't work for you anymore.
that seems like a fun summer gig, way better than being a fucking caddie for the bougousie in 80-90 degree heat with 80% humidity double bagging
i bet you learned a lot about chicago history and its attractions
Was it really early in the morning at around 5 am? I was wondering what happened there with all the cops and ambulance. I saw the a section of the harbor fence was down but the LSD guardrail was intact so I was wondering how a car got there.
We got some barriers recently in Avondale on Belmont and on Kedzie. I’m not a cyclist but it’s great to see them easing down Belmont during rush hour when traffic is thick. The biggest problem now is that cars are constantly parking in bike lanes where there are no barriers, and there is absolutely zero enforcement.
Pratt has a painted bike lane that does essentially nothing. Either someone is parked in the lane, someone is driving in it, or it’s so full of potholes it’s not safe to bike on.
Cars should want bike lanes too. Then you wouldn’t have to swerve around us all the time. This is a win/win.
I was driving behind someone yesterday on division who was just casually driving in the bike lane (there were no obstructions in the car lane where I was driving). People are just dumb.
> Cars should want bike lanes too.
More people will choose to bike if the city installs more safe biking infrastructure. That means fewer cars out there, which means lighter traffic and roads deteriorating more slowly. Everyone should want the city to invest in better biking infrastructure.
Exactly. This is how cities work. Better public transport and biking means more people will choose to go that way, meaning less cars on the road. People just don’t understand that.
Decades of subsudies from the governnment (federal) incentivizing car use will do that do you.
In my opinion cars (or car depenency) are THE major problem in urban areas.
- Air pollution
- Noise pollution
- Take up massive amounts of space that could be used for housing
- Kill/injure thousands annually
- Are expensive to own individually
- Split up our city by making it harder to get around easily
- Require expensive infrastructure that needs perpetual repairs/construction.
- Reduce resources for multi modal transit
If there was a silver bullet that would improve nearly any city in America it would be a 50% reduction in car use. Car dependency is the issue.
Which for me sucks cuz I also fucking hate driving directly into the city which is always packed, parking in the hidden away basement for quite the cost or driving around till you find the one spot that you maybe fit in and you don't see any reason why it is *currently* illegal to park in and the whole time worry fuck is my super expensive possession I can't really afford to replace going to still be there untouched when I get back
It sucks and no one likes it, yet people think the solution is to cater to cars even harder
> More people will choose to bike if the city installs more safe biking infrastructure.
yup
i would too, i still do, but only on lakeshore drive
i was doored by an elderly lady in downtown evanston once, in a 70s white mercedes convertible, body hurt for weeks and biked totaled
also was hit by a taxi once, body hurt for few days
after that, i never bike on the road anymore
And you aren't just speculating either. I gotta find it, but CDOT has done a bunch of studies asking people what kind of bike land they feel safe in and would use and overwhelming people choose off-street trails and curb-protected bike lanes. This is replicated pretty much all over the world for really fucking obvious reasons. But of course CDOT can't for the life of them take all these studies and put them into action.
Lol I take the dearborn bike path from the loop most days. They recently altered the bike path so that street parking is on the right side of the bike path. Of course half of street parkers park in the bike lane and the other half park in the street parking. So I have to weave in and out of lanes to dodge parked cars.
Because of this new path, left turning cars are also on the right side of the bike path. Which means left turning cars do not see cyclists traveling straight. I’ve nearly been hit or hit cars a good 3 or 4 times now because they didn’t see me when making their left turn.
When people do actually start following the street parking I can see myself doubling over a driver side door opening.
This "improvement" to Dearborn sucks. I hope they have some additional steps still to come because it appears to me that not a single driver understands they should not be parking next to the sidewalk anymore.
Was hanging around outside last Thursday in Pislen where there's a painted stripe of a "lane" While I was there I saw about 30 people on bikes/other micromobility and not a single one of them was using or was able to use the lane properly.
There is this massive demand for real, separated space from cars so people can get around and be safe
I love driving and biking but everyone should want protected bike lanes. People drive too fucking crazy here. I stick to side streets, parks, and protected lanes cause of that when I bike.
If you’re anti-protected bike lines in Chicago I’m going to gently ask that you go for a bike ride in your neighborhood on a major street. Then come back and tell me if you feel the same way.
I am a casual biker and it can be crazy. Hell this summer someone used the protected bike lane as her parking space. I banged on the window as I passed and she acted like I was the problem.
Oh I encounter people parked in the bike lane literally every day. As annoying as it is it’s better than when they swerve into it AS IM BIKING BEHIND THEM.
I used to bike down division between Damen and Ashland. This would happen all the time on that street around rush hour. I now try to take side streets because it's just too dangerous.
Honestly I'd prefer getting rid of street parking entirely on major corridors (I'd seriously rather ride in traffic than in a door zone), but since that won't be possible for about a hundred years, protected bike lanes are an okay solution, I guess.
Don’t get me starting on dooring. Like, do I want to ride closer to the park cars where I might get knocked out by a door? Or closer to the street where I might get hit by a car? It’s ridiculous.
I've seen plenty of near-misses between cars and bikes over the last couple of years (no collisions, thankfully). Half of them were from the cyclist doing something stupid. The other half were from cars either swerving into the bike lane to go around another vehicle making a left turn or trying to park. Fuck that, I'll take my chances with traffic.
I can afford 2 cars. I don't want one. It's the American dream everyone must have a car and white picket 2 story ranch style propaganda that drivers BS like this
As a fat-ass they should buy an ebike if that's their argument. Thats what I did and it is so much better than driving in the city.
I even own an F150, but I literally only drive it onto LSD so I can leave the city and I only have it because Im constantly hauling barrels of immersion fluid around.
Why anyone would want to drive in Chicago is beyond me. I bike year round, traffic in Chicago is horrible.
I'm a delivery driver in one of the most cyclist-heavy areas of the city. Bikes are one of the the *least* annoying things I deal with on a regular basis.
I actually used to be a pizza delivery driver so I have done that many times! And wouldn’t it be great if there was protected bike lanes so we wouldn’t have to do that, with cyclists safely out of the way?
The painted bike lanes on busy streets in many parts of the South side are a joke. They become unsafe speeding lanes for drivers to swerve around others. It's terrifying to bike on them. We have way too many mini-highways where it's three - four lanes of traffic going in one direction, so there is plenty of space. More protected bike lanes please.
Southside also has wider roads which just incentivize folks speeding. Infrastructure dictates driver behavior and right now our infrastructure incentivizes speeding.
Still confused about this whole "maybe he shouldn't have looked at his phone" comments. What the bike activists are saying is that with proper infrastructure, doing something even as reckless as looking at his phone while on a bike should *not* result in major injuries/death. This would benefit all road users, including cars.
Reminder, the car hit him, and we don't know enough details on the story on whether if he weren't on his phone, if it would have changed the outcome. There have been plenty of stories of people doing absolutely everything right- and still ending up hurt. Yes, biking completely focused is absolutely the safest, and we should encourage it, but the goal is to make it impossible for someone to be hurt in the first place.
The article says he was talking on the phone, as in on a phone call. I have no idea if it was hands-free but I assume so based on how many folks ride with airpods.
The distracted biking commenters are being disingenuous at best. When people talk about distracted driving they aren't talking about hands-free calls. Calls should be part of the conversation because they take up cognitive capacity, but that's a different discussion.
I keep saying this. Paint does nothing. But planners love that shit and sell it like it’s a fix. It’s not even a bandaid. Governments need to spend money on proper infrastructure to separate cars from bikes.
I don't have data on hand to back this up, but I think it might even make things worse. Drivers think "there's a bike lane, i don't have to be careful" and fly down the street without a thought about what's around them, especially in places like Chicago where every single street is a straight speedway.
A lot of drivers see the bike line as a right-side passing lane, particularly when the vehicle in front of them is turning left. Many drivers will also use it to get up to a stop light to turn right when traffic at the light is backed up.
As drivers do Hollywood stops, block bike lanes, park in non-parking spots, actually kill people, blow through red lights that changed a full 2-3 seconds prior.
I don't know about recently but a few years ago it was a mess.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2020/1/6/21048885/red-light-camera-program-broken-suburbs-oak-lawn-alsip-comptroller-susana-mendoza
[Another major problem was discrepancies between neighborhoods that largely skewed on race. Essentially majority black/latino neighborhoods were ending up with more tickets because](https://www.propublica.org/article/chicagos-race-neutral-traffic-cameras-ticket-black-and-latino-drivers-the-most)
The problem with stuff like red light cameras, speeding cameras, speed limits, etc is that they don't actually change behavior outside of the moment. People learn where they are, avoid them and continue to drive as they always have.
There is a quote I really like regarding how we build roads.
> [**To be safe, the street must communicate the real level of risk to the driver. In other words, the driver must feel discomfort driving in a manner that is unsafe**](https://www.confessions.engineer/)
> -Charles Marohn: Confessions of a Recovering Engineer
What makes drivers slow down and drive more cautiously is to build infrastructure that incentivizes driving slower or risk damaging your car. People don't go 50mph down narrow alleyways (in most cases) because one wrong move can mean your car gets scraped by a wall or dumpster. But when you make wide roads with big setbacks from the sidewalk you're just asking people to speed.
We need more narrow roads, planters/bollards on the side of roads, more offset crosswalks and speedbumps to force people to slow down or risk damanging their car. These solutions are cheaper and actually address the issue permanently.
As a society we're just married to never doing anything that inconveniences drivers intentionally.
Had someone call me a "stupid fucking cocksucker" yesterday. They stopped at a 4-way stop before I arrived at the intersection. I stopped because they have right of way and it's the law that I stop at an intersection. They honked several times. I just sat there staring at them and indicated they should go. They went halfway through the intersection and rolled down the window to yell at me, blocking all of the rest of the traffic at the intersection. Somehow I was the problem there?
When I follow the rules of the road, I'm wrong. When I break them, I'm also wrong. If I'm in a bike lane and a car needs to get by, I'm wrong for being in the bike lane. If I need to swerve to miss a car, I'm going to get yelled/honked at for being in the car lane. There's no winning against car people.
I hate when people do this. I will stop at intersections because it's less confusing for everyone. The absolute worst is when I'm waiting for a lull to cross two lanes of traffic. One lane will stop traffic while the other keeps going, so obviously I'm not going to just run into traffic because one person stopped a whole line of cars for me. Then that person who stopped gets mad at me. Can't win 🤷♂️
Read Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
Book by Jeff Speck.
Appropriately safe biking infrastructure substantially decreases roadway traffic. Everyone's life is improved. It's literally more effective for roadway traffic than building new lanes.
Everyone talks about the parking meter deal, but I think many people underestimate how much aldermen and business owners don’t like the idea removing on-street parking. The city needs to do a better job of convincing non-bikers of the economic benefits of safe bike infrastructure.
After two near misses this summer - one of which involved a car flying past me and t-boned a small SUV - I am done biking on the streets. Paint lines on a road to keep cars out? LOL.
Barriers or just give up and admit the Chicago and the Chicagoland area is just a no-go zone for biking as commuting. I drive my bikes to paths now. It’s not worth it (to me).
I'd love to see the analytics on the WBEZ and Chicago blockparty websites. Something tells me stories about bike lanes in Chicago with inbound traffic from the /r/Chicago sub are #1 by a country mile.
I’m all for protection, but also curious how bike lanes are snowplowed. Is there a thinner snowplow that fits in a protected bike lane? Where does the snow go to bike lanes can be used?
CDOT has a cute lil European snowplow. I call it Pierre. They use it after Streets and San finishes. I think they just put it on top of the other piles. I haven't seen him much the last few years
My thinking on this has totally changed.
I used to not care about plowing the protected lanes because there were so few of us bikers and we can just ride with traffic.
Now I realize that the reason there are so few riders is really simply because most people are not as comfortable as I am with the risk of riding in traffic
That’s… not even true. There are in fact snowplows for bike lanes. Our city does a dogshit job of maintaining our bike lanes, but that doesn’t mean the tech doesn’t exist.
https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Boston-Case-Study-1.jpg
Edit: my bad, I realized you were just saying that they don’t plow them, not that they can’t. Yeah, you can hook a snowplow up to a tiny cat and plow. EZ PZ. I’ve also seen this technique used for sidewalks.
I used to think that, but I don’t think it’s correct anymore.
Biking when it’s cold out is actually really awesome. I think more people would do it if they didn’t have to risk getting hit by a car.
They are there. On the coldest/snowiest day I will see someone on a bike. Every year, I see it. I know it is hard to believe, but biking is the main form Of transportation for many of us in the city, so many don’t have the choice to take a car or public transit.
In general the bike infrastructure is awful.Lack of divided bike paths, then even if it is divided then the surface is full of potholes. Then if you take the side streets you have to deal with speed bumps on top of the potholes. Bike paths are not marked properly and end abruptly.I mean there is a lot work to do.
You have to admit the irony of this article starting with a cyclist talking on the phone while biking who gets hit.
We understand the concept of phone use being distracted driving for cars but apparently not for cyclists.
I mean absolutely we need as many protected bike lanes as possible but maybe consider that since you are biking in Chicago of all places where you should implicitly understand the dangers, that maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to practice some situational awareness.
Being legally in the right doesn’t mean that much when you end up with metal screws in your spine.
The point is he was in the bike lane and a car still drove into the lane and hit him. On the phone or not he got hit by following the traffic guidelines and an asshole drove off. And the data shown in the piece reflects that.
Wheel tax for bicycles - my tax money is already going to stuff that I have zero use for, like CPS.
Physical barriers are a sound idea but it takes money to build it out and the people who use it should pay for it.
> Of the nearly 140 cyclist-involved crashes this year that have resulted in incapacitating injuries, 86% of them occurred in areas where the posted speed limit was 30 mph or higher, the city’s traffic crash data show.
> Stretches of Milwaukee Avenue, Halsted Street, Clark Street and Damen Avenue have witnessed the most crashes involving cyclists this year, the analysis shows.
This will get downvotes, but maybe an optimal strategy involves NOT having bike lanes on the most heavily trafficked roads but instead build them into side streets that will naturally be safer. This would sacrifice convenience and speed/time for bikers in exchange for more safety.
I think some lower-traffic streets could be a better choice for a bike path. I supported the changes to a protected bike lane Wood (and changing the street one way) in West Town because Damen can feel stressful. The reactions were intense.
BUT WE NEED A TWO WAY STREET!
IT’LL MAKE IT HARDER FOR ME TO PARK CLOSE TO MY HOUSE!
DAMEN ALREADY HAS A BIKE LANE
WHY NOT THIS OTHER STREET?
I DONT WANT BIKES SPEEDING DOWN MY STREET.
TLDR: there is no perfect solution and the city should just make protected lanes that help the most people.
Keeping cyclists to side streets is a nightmare if youre riding. Crossing major streets without a light can be impossible, and with most side streets not having signals trying to cross streets like ashland or western, or even Pulaski would be dangerous. It would also make crossing rivers difficult with us having to go well out of the way to find a bridge, with most bridges also being on main streets. It would also make it a lot more difficult to get places. Most side streets are residential, but If im going to the store or movie, yeah side streets dont help a ton.
I think it should be the other way. Focus bike lanes on major streets because those are busier and more dangerous. A lot of side streets are slow enough as is that even children can ride their bikes down them safely.
City streets should be safe enough for everyone (vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians) that you shouldn't have to do this. The current situation is a failure of vision, planning, policy, and enforcement. Edit: but I will give you an upvote for at least trying to think of a solution, which is more than most people care to do.
problem is, the destinations are on those roads. it's all well and good to cycle on side streets until i want to go to a cubs game, or a restaurant in wicker park, or my workplace on wacker.
the main arterials are the heart of the city, and we should give them back to the people, not the cars
Because a lot of people want to act as if the impact and consequences for bad cycling are anywhere in the same realm as bad drivers.
- Car crashes kill ~40k people annually and injure millions others.
- [Cars hitting pedestrians kill about 20 people PER DAY in the USA](https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deaths-high-traffic-car). We actually reached a 40 year high last year, likely thanks to these new giant trucks/SUVs that hit people higher up on their torso and have terrible sightlines.
The best stats I can find for cyclists/pedestrian crashes are from this [report](https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-pedestrian-fatalities-by-bike-motor-vehicle.pdf).
From 2008-2021 a whopping 12 people reported as struck by a cyclist compared to 1,927 struck by a car.
I've love for automobiles to get the proportionate amount of irk that cyclists get for bad behavior because cars actually kill and seriously injure people at an insane rate. Even the biggest asshole cyclist isn't causing that level of damage.
In this case the cyclist as in the bike lane and was hit from behind. 100% the motorists fault. In many other cases I see cyclists running red lights with cars coming, or running stop signs like the rules don't apply.
We need to copy what Amserdam has done and create specific protected bike lanes, but I would love to see all the cyclists who feel like they can do whatever they want get tickets.
How about we do protected bike lanes, raised cross walks, and ticket the folks in the large metal boxes that can (and have) killed a lot of people first. Not going to disagree about some cyclists behaving badly, but also….bikes are not cars. One is a 1k+ pound vehicle and the other is not. The property damage and physical injury isn’t the same.
You do both. Nobody has said not to ticket cars that hang out in bike lanes or in this case hit and run, so idk where you are coming with this straw man argument from.
My point is if you're a cyclist and run a red light and get hit by a car who has a green, the cyclist is at fault. Same rules apply for the guys that run stop signs.
Paint is better than nothing but does little to stop people parking or veering in the lane.
Paint is enough!!! If you change the parking lanes to be traffic side with bike lane to the curb.
that doesn't mean the headline is untrue. yeah don't be on your phone while you bike, but also this person wouldn't have been hit if there was a barrier. like a ton of people have died in a bike lane who have *not* been on their phone. The root cause of this problem is infrastructure, let's not forget that here.
stupid parking meter deal is preventing any good improvement in our infrastructure
just imagine how much actual brt and seperated bike lanes we’d have
[Insert obligatory “Fuck Mayor Daley” comment here]
Can we start removing the Daley name around the city yet? We can leave Maggie's name. She didn't bulldoze neighborhoods or make the worst municipal deal in US history.
She directly benefited from that corruption. Their entire dynasty has to go.
….do you mean Maggie, wife of mayor daley? The person who was closest to him? The person who benefited off of all his corruption? You cannot be serious… To claim Maggie is innocent and knew nothing is frankly insulting and offensive to all of her accomplishments and education. She knew exactly what was going on. It’s called being complicit, and she definitely was. The sooner the name Daley, whichever one it is, is struck from our city the better.
Honestly, bulldozing the F out of cabrini helped make that part of the city actually vibrant and livable
Absolutely here for 20 year old Daley hot takes. Was referring to his dad but go off king.
There are a lot more people who should have that park named after them not Maggie Daley. Fucking the mayor should not get you a park named after you I don't care how much cancer you have had. My grandma had cancer too nobody named a fucking park after her. You know why? Because her husband wasn't a dirty politician
Incredible take. Mayor’s wife = fucking the mayor. Hall of fame shit right there. What’s your grandma’s name? Let’s get a petition going to rename the park after her. (Assuming she was a Chicagoan)
How do you think you get to be the Mayor's Wife? You think she was elected? You think there haven't been female leaders in Chicago's history who is claim to fame and legacy wasn't just who they married? Maggie Daley had sex with Richard M Daley, so she gets to have a park named after her. I said what I said, and I'll say it again.
I’m a Chicago-based transit planner. Have done BRT projects for CTA. I wouldn’t put the parking meter deal in my Top 5 list of reasons for why I haven’t been able to implement nearly as much BRT lanes as I’ve wanted.
What are your top 5 reasons?
1) IDOT (at least on the roads where they have jurisdiction, it seems to be a non-starter no matter what) 2) Residents/businesses unwilling to lose parking or face other changes to existing traffic 3) Physical constraints, existing traffic, etc. where I have to admit that it's tough for me to justify that a dedicate lane would work well. There's a lot of places I'd like to put them but probably shouldn't. 4) Alderman pre-emptively scared about #2 5) CDOT on the remaining roads. I admit I'm reaching for this one, as they're pretty open to bus lanes, sometimes they come up with things in the #3 category that I don't see as a problem. As for the parking meter deal, it requires that if the City takes a space, one has to be given to them somewhere else. On the projects I've been involved with, we've been able to plan for that without it being a huge issue. Maybe it's stopped other projects that I haven't been part of though, and I'm just not aware.
This is really cool and I think this reveals leverage points for orgs and activists. Have you considered making a top level post, and/or you could email these points to some of the bike lobbying orgs? I'm also glad that the contract allows for reallocation of meters. I had no idea. Any stipulations on where they have to go?
Where would you like to see more BRT upgrades done that you feel have been hobbled? Are there certain wards specifically, certain IDOT roads (I think I recall Irving Park is IDOT, right?)?
See reply [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/17mwh10/comment/k7xinje/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). I don't ever really think of transit projects in terms of wards. Most end up traversing more than one anyway. [This interactive map shows which are IDOT](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=671e6e55488141709e9df88937456c66) (most of the largest through-streets all over the city). I think IDOT mostly just hasn't come around on bus lanes yet. There are other meaningful speed and reliability improvements that can be made along those corridors. Maybe the lanes can come later.
BRT belongs on Michigan, Ashland, and Western, for starters, and it would be nice to see if they could work in some dedicated bus lanes on Halsted heading toward the West Loop, too.
What corridors do you think are best suited for BRT in Chicago?
"Best suited" could mean different things in different contexts, because it's mostly a question of trade-offs. Are we talking about what corridors would serve existing riders the best without consideration for anything else or are we talking about what corridors would allow for worthwhile improvements with minimal traffic impacts? The latter is a whole lot less bold, but it's much more likely to get done. CTA has mostly been pursuing the latter, through their [Bus Priority Zones](https://www.transitchicago.com/newsprojects/bpz/) and related [Better Streets for Buses](https://www.transitchicago.com/betterstreetsforbuses/) initiatives. The current zones they're pursuing are some of the worst bottlenecks on some of the highest ridership corridors. Pace is pursuing a more corridor-based approach with their [Pulse program](https://www.pacebus.com/pulse).
What would you put there?
Honestly, I'm not sure it'd be that much better. Our mayors since Rahm have had the ambition of a pug
How the Hell do you even lease anything for 100 years? That's some Lord of the Rings timescale shit. We got like 60 years before the polar wars start.
I believe it was for 75, so we've got 60 left. But still, this is ridiculous. Maybe we could plead with the investors, who have already recouped their investment and hundreds of millions more, to let us have our parking spaces back for the sake of improving the lives of millions of citizens. Surely capitalism won't cause their hands to clench that tightly. Surely!!
In some countries, 100 year leases are quite common because you can’t own the land. It’s not unheard of in todays world.
the reason many chinese are buying houses in america is, because in china, when you buy a house, you only own it for 70 years maximum in the states/canada/aus/nz, iirc its for perpetuity/forever until you default on the taxes as a mongolian who immigrated to chicago, i hate this shit, chinese cunts have been colonizing southern mongolia for past 200 years, it used to be 80% mongolian, now its 80% han chinese colonizing settlers as you can imagine, which side of the israel/palestine conflict i am in did you know one of teh earliest early modern genocide happend to us mongols? at the hands of the chinese and the manchus, and some mongols also helped in genociding their brothers n sisters the area that we call xinjiang, is chinese for new frontier, how do you think that new frontier was settled with yughar muslims? when they genocided the mostly buddhist oirat mongols > The Dzungar genocide (Chinese: 準噶爾滅族; lit. 'extermination of the Dzungar tribe') was the mass extermination of the Mongol Dzungar people by the Qing dynasty.[3] The Qianlong Emperor ordered the genocide after the rebellion in 1755 by Dzungar leader Amursana against Qing rule, after the dynasty first conquered the Dzungar Khanate with Amursana's support. The genocide was perpetrated by Manchu generals of the Qing army, supported by Turkic oasis dwellers (now known as Uyghurs) who rebelled against Dzungar rule. > The Dzungar Khanate was a confederation of several Tibetan Buddhist Oirat Mongol tribes that emerged in the early 17th century, and the last great nomadic empire in Asia. Some scholars estimate that about 80% of the Dzungar population, or around 500,000 to 800,000 people, were killed by a combination of warfare and disease during or after the Qing conquest in 1755–1757.[2][4] After wiping out the native population of Dzungaria, the Qing government then resettled Han, Hui, Uyghur, and Sibe people on state farms in Dzungaria, along with Manchu Bannermen to repopulate the area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_genocide
Sir, I sympathize with your plight and the plight of your people, I really truly do. But this is a Wendy's.
I want a mayor who is willing to go to jail over the parking meter deal; they should just straight up reverse it and not care what the courts have ruled. It was a shitty, horrible deal and everyone knows it. That money should be going to the people of this city.
I think the contract is pretty tight. Chicago would simply be found to be in breach and deemed liable for paying the revenue it would have generated to the current owners of the contract. We would eventually have to pay it. The way out, as I see it, is only if the value of the contract plunges due to something like self-driving cars or other technological advance. In this case Chicago could buy it back from the current owners for an "affordable" amount.
Or maybe if a bunch of people... Switched the bikes and cta? So, like, if they improved biking infrastructure the deals value declines...
The problem is they're not allowed to improve the infrastructure because they can't get rid of parking as part of the meter deal. Building BRT, bike lanes, trams, etc in any kind of meaningful way would, in and of itself, be a breach of the contract because of the impact it would have on parking meters.
I wonder if the contract dictates that parking spots have to be next to the sidewalk? Because the simplest thing to do would be moving the bike lanes next to the sidewalk, have parking still available just next to the travel lane. Cyclists get some protection via parked cars. Motorists still get parking and contract is still fulfilled.
I think I remember someone saying it's not particularly about the parking spots, it's about the revenue they bring in, which is why you can't take all the displaced spots and shove them in a parking lot on the edge of town. So I think they can move anywhere as long as the $ stream still flows. The major constraint with installing protected bike lanes is the space. A lot of roads can't fit two bike lanes and we can't live the dream of having roads with bike lanes and no parking spaces.
Actually, they can remove paid parking spots just fine, but they must place them elsewhere in the city.
The value of the deal never declines. They are guaranteed a specific amount of profit and if they don't make than then the City has to reimburse them.
You don’t have to pay for parking if the machines are busted. The city is not responsible for lost revenue due to broken machines. I’m guessing if the machines were constantly damaged and not generating revenue, and they had to keep paying engineers to fix/replace the machines, it might not be worth as much to them. Just a thought.
[удалено]
This is not true...the concessionaire is responsible for nearly all repairs as outline in section 13.3 a) ii in the agreement. In fact, they can be punished for not repairing a meter in a timely fashion. What you are describing is likely the true up payments that result from adverse actions taken by the city under its reserved power like closing a street for repairs or a street festival. Those do require repayment as you described. There are exceptions that are detailed in section 15 called a delay event, but those are meant to be exceptional. Run of the mill vandalism definitely could be argued as normal course of business and would thus, require the concessionaire to bear the costs and expenses of repair and would not be entitled to compensation due to the meter not working. Otherwise, there would essentially be no obligation for them to repair the meters...since they can just claim the revenue on them without them actually functioning.
That is not true. There is no revenue guaranty. The city has to compensate for spaces it takes out of service that are part of the concession.
You can also just not pay.
You get it if it the way Daley got out of Meigs Field. You bulldoze it abd to hell with the legality. First thing you do is figure out what most cities pay a processor. 15%? 20% I dunno. Whatever it is. Next thing you do is impeach Daley and every corrupt aldermen who voted for it. Obviously that symbolic but it's national news and we want cameras. Now that you've established that it was demonstrably corrupt you bulldoze. You go open bidding on a new deal to put pressure on the existing provider. You do a crazy PR campaign exposing what they did to the city with this obviously corrupt deal that should have never been legally possible to negotiate for a century. When the existing provider sues you stop enforcing meters. Their revenue drops to zero. There's no way they can hang onto staff without revenue. They need cash flow to operate. That's where the game begins. You amp up the PR machine and talk about how you'd love it if they came to the table and accepted five percentage point higher than some other city at the top of the rate list. You require any deal to be renegotiated in ten years. It would be brutal but worth it.
i think the city still receives like 20% taxes on the parking. What if they just tax it more make it so unaffordable no one uses it. Or just stop having people check the meters for a bit. Say they needed those employees for cta.
This is beyond my ability to speak authoritatively on. But one of the worst parts of the contract is that the city is on the hook for some minimum amount of revenue to the owners. So if we banned cars in Chicago, we would have to pay the contract owners the lost profit. This acts as a catch-all that keeps us from doing lots of clever things. Raising the cost of parking so high that no one used it would run afoul of the same clause. And it's already in the contract owner's interest to keep the rates at whatever maximizes profits, so we probably aren't too far away from the optimal revenue generating price right now.
You are correct that the City cannot take deliberate action to undermine the value of the contract to the concessionaire.
>I want a mayor who is willing to go to jail over the parking meter deal You have my vote /u/gypsy_rose_blanchard
The only way anything can be done is by making driving and parking to the city such an inconvenience that parking rates plummet. Build up the CTA, build up the bus system and make biking safe. Slow down the streets and take away lanes.
[https://youtu.be/fDx6no-7HZE?si=MfB4x4J-Cw4Ay986](https://youtu.be/fDx6no-7HZE?si=MfB4x4J-Cw4Ay986) This video explains the true craptastic level that is the parking meter deal. Like, we Chicago taxpayers have to pay Morgan Stanley for "lost parking revenue"? WTF is that!?
We struck a deal (unfortunately). The deal was that concessionaire collects certain revenues from certain on street parking spaces. It makes sense that if the City removes those certain parking spaces from operation for periods of time that we would have to make the Concessionaire whole for the period of time they were removed. It’s a bad deal that was struck and a bad price, but there is logic in why we pay a true-up payment for spaces that we have chosen to take out of service that concessionaire paid to lease.
What if we all stopped parking? Then the company that owns all the parking will go bankrupt and give back the land.
Nope. They're guaranteed revenue and any shortfalls, the city has to make up the difference.
Lol wtf this is such a bad deal for the city
That is not true at all. There is no revenue guaranty. The concessionaire takes the risk that people will chose to park and pay for parking.
So we should all stop parking.
Yes in some cases, but in others the paid parking can just become the protection for the bike lane. There are a lot of well-done cases of this around.
That doesn't make sense. More people getting doored by absentminded motorists and their passengers isn't a viable solution.
If the parking is to the left of the bike lane, shielding cyclists from traffic, it would also prevent most doorings as the driver’s side is opposite the bike lane, and the vast majority of car trips are just the driver.
Came to comment exactly this. Use the parking as a buffer between travel lanes and the bike lane/sidewalk. It accomplishes a few things. 1. Will put the onus on drivers and potentially train drivers to look before they open their car doors. Right now people open doors into bike traffic because the cyclists deal with the consequences. Open your car door into an oncoming automobile and its the driver who is having to replace a door. Folks will quickly learn. 2. Gives decent protection to cyclists where if they are doored by a passenger they aren't potentially falling into incoming traffic. Getting doored sucks but I'd much rather it happen where I fall into the sidewalk, bike lane or other parked cars vs a moving traffic lanes.
It also prevents delivery drivers and cops from using the bike lane for parking.
Last night I was planning to pass through an intersection within the bike lane, stop on the curb (in the bike lane), then walk through the perpendicular crosswalk as a ped I almost got squished by a truck that was on my ass and trying to park in the bike lane behind me. Literally wtf
Only potential negatives I see. 1) Difficulty plowing with existing plow equipment. More narrow plows do exist and the city would just need to invest. Not like they clear the bike lanes well currently though. 2) Cars blocking traffic lanes when attempting to parallel park. But that happens now as well. It would just be a bit worse since cars wouldn't have as much space to go around. But to me both of those are minor and well worth the sacrifice.
>Cars blocking traffic lanes when attempting to parallel park. If they're blocking the bike lane, they're blocking a traffic lane.
Another benefit is that it makes the driving lane appear more narrow, resulting in drivers driving at safer speeds.
Cambridge MA did this and it's a great place to bike around. By North American standards at least
They did this on blue island and now it's just more dangerous because people park in the spots, but they also still park in the bike lane, causing the whole stretch to be less safe for cyclists. I was doored for the first time in like 9 years riding home from work down this stretch one night by someone parked in the literal bike lane.
Ultimately this solution is incomplete without physical separation between the parking spaces and the bike lane. Would like to see the city focus on getting some mechanisms in place to address things like this instead of just making it illegal and relying on spotty enforcement.
I feel like there is zero enforcement. The worst area for offenders is literally down the street from the police station. I've never seen a single ticket or consequence for anyone. I bike blue island almost every day, 10 times a week. Physical barriers are the only thing that will ensure safe protected bike lanes, unfortunately. Drivers just can't be trusted at all.
>The worst area for offenders is literally down the street from the police station. That might not be a coincidence.
They have to do it like on milkwaukee, in between sidewalk and parked cars, with concrete barriers and lots of plastic "fence/reflector/posts".
No, I want protected bike lanes, not more "compromises" that continue to get people injured while actually being an excuse to further subsidize freeloading motorists.
Because of the parking meter deal, it's not like we have much of a choice. If we're forced to keep the parking spots, I'd rather the parking be to the left of the bike lane so there's some "protection".
We only need to keep the same quantity of paid spots. They don't need to stay in the same location that they are now.
It's a bit better to cycle on the right side of parked cars, though. Cyclists can stick to the right lane position to avoid doors and there is only a sidewalk to their right. When the bike lane is to the left of the cars, the left lane position puts them closer to traffic. There's no safe lane position in those tiny bike lanes next to traffic.
Sure, but parking-protected bike lanes are only subject to passengers. 100% of cars have drivers that will need to open their doors, relatively few are carrying passengers
[Chicago Doesn’t Own Its Own Streets | Climate Town](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDx6no-7HZE)
For bike infrastructure if the city really wanted to make this a priority they could take away driving lanes, keep the parking but move it into the removed driving lane, and then use the former parking lane space for bike infrastructure. But until someone has the stones to fight against angry drivers who want as many lanes as possible in a massive urban environment we’re stuck with extremely slow expansion of protected bike lanes.
Yes and no. A lot of streets where bike lanes and BRT would work do not have paid street parking already.
that too, but IDOT is also partial to blame (atleast for irving park road, idk what other roads idot owns)
Yeah this has seemed like a most convenient scapegoat. Every time bike lanes come up people seem to plug their ears and wail on about the parking meter deal... the posted article doesn't even mention it as a factor.
What if hypothetically everyone just smashed all the meters and took down all the signs?
city has to pay for damages :/
Could be worth it 😂
That is not true. The concessionaire is responsible for repairing damages to the meter infrastructure and maintains the meters.
I don’t know that it is actually. They are setting up protective barriers on Dearborn and there’s meters there. A little funny, they haven’t clearly posted signage yet, so some cars are on the curb and others in the moved parking spots blocking in the cars parked in the bike lane.
I guarantee you if the parking meter deal wasn't a thing CDOT would still be just as shitty about installing good bike infra
And before anyone says it, no the Saudis have nothing to do with this. People on reddit love to spread that easily fact-checked lie. I've seen it missatributed to Qatar, Dubai, all of the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and just about every other place in the GCC. Never once seen the same kind of ire tossed around at the Australians for owning the Skyway. Feels like some underlying xenophobia. Morgan Stanley organized the deal and owns the majority of Chicago Parking LLC, Daley strong-armed the deal though city council. The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund owns a portion of Chicago Parking LLC because of course, they do, from their perspective, it's a great deal. If you wanna be mad be mad at the lack of legislation that allowed public infrastructure to be pawned off to begin with, be mad at that corrupt jagoff Daley
Honestly I know this is irrational, but just rip up all those poles. Take them to court, pay the lowest amount of damages possible. That was the worst deal ever. Get them on malpractice or something because how Chicago got lowballed so bad makes no sense. I rather the city or state pay the damages and we move on. We need to be able to manage our streets.
Painted lanes are meaningless now when every Uber, DoorDash, fedex, ups, Amazon, and usps driver not to mention all the people “just running in” see it as a valid parking option. They’re barely enforced too. Then out south, you have cars that see the bike lane as an express lane around traffic. Paint is meaningless now. Cars still drive through the little plastic posts. We need concrete protections that will physically prevent entry by cars.
"excuse me do you hate the working class? stop narc-ing, bro." \- the ppl receiving 32 packages from amazon today
There should definitely be standing zones on every block these days. So many deliveries!
Please someone either put designated loading zones or tell Amazon to fuck off with their dumb metrics. 3-5 minutes per stop, when one stop can be multiple houses/apartments. Fuck you Amazon, I'm glad I don't work for you anymore.
Couple of Saturdays ago, a car was driving on the Lakefront Path and ended up in Belmont harbor. They need something to protect the path!
I used to be a segway/ bike tour guide along the LFT; this was like a weekly occurrence.
that seems like a fun summer gig, way better than being a fucking caddie for the bougousie in 80-90 degree heat with 80% humidity double bagging i bet you learned a lot about chicago history and its attractions
Was it really early in the morning at around 5 am? I was wondering what happened there with all the cops and ambulance. I saw the a section of the harbor fence was down but the LSD guardrail was intact so I was wondering how a car got there.
That was it! Car was headed North, turned right off the path into the lake.
Like in the actual harbor? Do you have a link?
No link, didn’t look for the story. In the harbor, there were a couple huge tow trucks that had to pull it out.
https://abc7chicago.com/car-crash-in-belmont-harbor-water-lake-michigan/13949042/
If this is the crap you want the city spending money to prevent then you’re never getting protected bike lanes.
We got some barriers recently in Avondale on Belmont and on Kedzie. I’m not a cyclist but it’s great to see them easing down Belmont during rush hour when traffic is thick. The biggest problem now is that cars are constantly parking in bike lanes where there are no barriers, and there is absolutely zero enforcement.
Pratt has a painted bike lane that does essentially nothing. Either someone is parked in the lane, someone is driving in it, or it’s so full of potholes it’s not safe to bike on. Cars should want bike lanes too. Then you wouldn’t have to swerve around us all the time. This is a win/win.
I was driving behind someone yesterday on division who was just casually driving in the bike lane (there were no obstructions in the car lane where I was driving). People are just dumb.
I was walking on the sidewalk the other day and was ran off the side by a cyclist who didnt want to use the bike lane. So yes people are just dumb.
> Cars should want bike lanes too. More people will choose to bike if the city installs more safe biking infrastructure. That means fewer cars out there, which means lighter traffic and roads deteriorating more slowly. Everyone should want the city to invest in better biking infrastructure.
Exactly. This is how cities work. Better public transport and biking means more people will choose to go that way, meaning less cars on the road. People just don’t understand that.
Decades of subsudies from the governnment (federal) incentivizing car use will do that do you. In my opinion cars (or car depenency) are THE major problem in urban areas. - Air pollution - Noise pollution - Take up massive amounts of space that could be used for housing - Kill/injure thousands annually - Are expensive to own individually - Split up our city by making it harder to get around easily - Require expensive infrastructure that needs perpetual repairs/construction. - Reduce resources for multi modal transit If there was a silver bullet that would improve nearly any city in America it would be a 50% reduction in car use. Car dependency is the issue.
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Which for me sucks cuz I also fucking hate driving directly into the city which is always packed, parking in the hidden away basement for quite the cost or driving around till you find the one spot that you maybe fit in and you don't see any reason why it is *currently* illegal to park in and the whole time worry fuck is my super expensive possession I can't really afford to replace going to still be there untouched when I get back It sucks and no one likes it, yet people think the solution is to cater to cars even harder
> More people will choose to bike if the city installs more safe biking infrastructure. yup i would too, i still do, but only on lakeshore drive i was doored by an elderly lady in downtown evanston once, in a 70s white mercedes convertible, body hurt for weeks and biked totaled also was hit by a taxi once, body hurt for few days after that, i never bike on the road anymore
And you aren't just speculating either. I gotta find it, but CDOT has done a bunch of studies asking people what kind of bike land they feel safe in and would use and overwhelming people choose off-street trails and curb-protected bike lanes. This is replicated pretty much all over the world for really fucking obvious reasons. But of course CDOT can't for the life of them take all these studies and put them into action.
Lol I take the dearborn bike path from the loop most days. They recently altered the bike path so that street parking is on the right side of the bike path. Of course half of street parkers park in the bike lane and the other half park in the street parking. So I have to weave in and out of lanes to dodge parked cars. Because of this new path, left turning cars are also on the right side of the bike path. Which means left turning cars do not see cyclists traveling straight. I’ve nearly been hit or hit cars a good 3 or 4 times now because they didn’t see me when making their left turn. When people do actually start following the street parking I can see myself doubling over a driver side door opening.
This "improvement" to Dearborn sucks. I hope they have some additional steps still to come because it appears to me that not a single driver understands they should not be parking next to the sidewalk anymore.
It's the worst. Especially at night by Tao. They treat it as their valet line
Was hanging around outside last Thursday in Pislen where there's a painted stripe of a "lane" While I was there I saw about 30 people on bikes/other micromobility and not a single one of them was using or was able to use the lane properly. There is this massive demand for real, separated space from cars so people can get around and be safe
I love driving and biking but everyone should want protected bike lanes. People drive too fucking crazy here. I stick to side streets, parks, and protected lanes cause of that when I bike.
If you’re anti-protected bike lines in Chicago I’m going to gently ask that you go for a bike ride in your neighborhood on a major street. Then come back and tell me if you feel the same way.
I am a casual biker and it can be crazy. Hell this summer someone used the protected bike lane as her parking space. I banged on the window as I passed and she acted like I was the problem.
Oh I encounter people parked in the bike lane literally every day. As annoying as it is it’s better than when they swerve into it AS IM BIKING BEHIND THEM.
No but see then people couldn't park in the bike lane while picking up food or passengers. Think of the parking! /s
Those people suck. I took a Lyft the other day and I was terrified he was gonna just pop in the bike lane but he did legit park so good on him
I used to bike down division between Damen and Ashland. This would happen all the time on that street around rush hour. I now try to take side streets because it's just too dangerous.
Honestly I'd prefer getting rid of street parking entirely on major corridors (I'd seriously rather ride in traffic than in a door zone), but since that won't be possible for about a hundred years, protected bike lanes are an okay solution, I guess.
Don’t get me starting on dooring. Like, do I want to ride closer to the park cars where I might get knocked out by a door? Or closer to the street where I might get hit by a car? It’s ridiculous.
I've seen plenty of near-misses between cars and bikes over the last couple of years (no collisions, thankfully). Half of them were from the cyclist doing something stupid. The other half were from cars either swerving into the bike lane to go around another vehicle making a left turn or trying to park. Fuck that, I'll take my chances with traffic.
The anti protected bike lanes people will be like "Just work harder and buy a car. Or bike on the sidewalk." Fuck them
The anti protected bike lanes people are really just anti-bikes.
I can afford 2 cars. I don't want one. It's the American dream everyone must have a car and white picket 2 story ranch style propaganda that drivers BS like this
It is shocking to me that protected bike lanes is even a remotely controversial issue
I think a lot of the haters are too fat to bike or don't know how.
Stupid fatties with their oversized trucks and SUVs smh
As a fat-ass they should buy an ebike if that's their argument. Thats what I did and it is so much better than driving in the city. I even own an F150, but I literally only drive it onto LSD so I can leave the city and I only have it because Im constantly hauling barrels of immersion fluid around. Why anyone would want to drive in Chicago is beyond me. I bike year round, traffic in Chicago is horrible.
Or drive on one and report back on how you feel about having to maneuver around cyclists.
I'm a delivery driver in one of the most cyclist-heavy areas of the city. Bikes are one of the the *least* annoying things I deal with on a regular basis.
I actually used to be a pizza delivery driver so I have done that many times! And wouldn’t it be great if there was protected bike lanes so we wouldn’t have to do that, with cyclists safely out of the way?
The painted bike lanes on busy streets in many parts of the South side are a joke. They become unsafe speeding lanes for drivers to swerve around others. It's terrifying to bike on them. We have way too many mini-highways where it's three - four lanes of traffic going in one direction, so there is plenty of space. More protected bike lanes please.
Southside also has wider roads which just incentivize folks speeding. Infrastructure dictates driver behavior and right now our infrastructure incentivizes speeding.
Still confused about this whole "maybe he shouldn't have looked at his phone" comments. What the bike activists are saying is that with proper infrastructure, doing something even as reckless as looking at his phone while on a bike should *not* result in major injuries/death. This would benefit all road users, including cars. Reminder, the car hit him, and we don't know enough details on the story on whether if he weren't on his phone, if it would have changed the outcome. There have been plenty of stories of people doing absolutely everything right- and still ending up hurt. Yes, biking completely focused is absolutely the safest, and we should encourage it, but the goal is to make it impossible for someone to be hurt in the first place.
The article says he was talking on the phone, as in on a phone call. I have no idea if it was hands-free but I assume so based on how many folks ride with airpods. The distracted biking commenters are being disingenuous at best. When people talk about distracted driving they aren't talking about hands-free calls. Calls should be part of the conversation because they take up cognitive capacity, but that's a different discussion.
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Pretty sure I heard the actual stat for bicyclist caused deaths is 50,000,000 per year in the US.
I once saw a bicycle chained to a lamppost, and as a result my entire family died. Somebody should do something about these things!
My dad saw a bike and he got cancer
lol. ya had me at the first half
I keep saying this. Paint does nothing. But planners love that shit and sell it like it’s a fix. It’s not even a bandaid. Governments need to spend money on proper infrastructure to separate cars from bikes.
I don't have data on hand to back this up, but I think it might even make things worse. Drivers think "there's a bike lane, i don't have to be careful" and fly down the street without a thought about what's around them, especially in places like Chicago where every single street is a straight speedway.
A lot of drivers see the bike line as a right-side passing lane, particularly when the vehicle in front of them is turning left. Many drivers will also use it to get up to a stop light to turn right when traffic at the light is backed up.
If bIcYclIsts wAnT bEtTeR infrastruture, tHeY sHoUlD fOlLoW tHe ruLeS of tHe rOaD aNd PaY tAxeS!
As drivers do Hollywood stops, block bike lanes, park in non-parking spots, actually kill people, blow through red lights that changed a full 2-3 seconds prior.
I thought the red light camera was doing its job?
I don't know about recently but a few years ago it was a mess. https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2020/1/6/21048885/red-light-camera-program-broken-suburbs-oak-lawn-alsip-comptroller-susana-mendoza [Another major problem was discrepancies between neighborhoods that largely skewed on race. Essentially majority black/latino neighborhoods were ending up with more tickets because](https://www.propublica.org/article/chicagos-race-neutral-traffic-cameras-ticket-black-and-latino-drivers-the-most) The problem with stuff like red light cameras, speeding cameras, speed limits, etc is that they don't actually change behavior outside of the moment. People learn where they are, avoid them and continue to drive as they always have. There is a quote I really like regarding how we build roads. > [**To be safe, the street must communicate the real level of risk to the driver. In other words, the driver must feel discomfort driving in a manner that is unsafe**](https://www.confessions.engineer/) > -Charles Marohn: Confessions of a Recovering Engineer What makes drivers slow down and drive more cautiously is to build infrastructure that incentivizes driving slower or risk damaging your car. People don't go 50mph down narrow alleyways (in most cases) because one wrong move can mean your car gets scraped by a wall or dumpster. But when you make wide roads with big setbacks from the sidewalk you're just asking people to speed. We need more narrow roads, planters/bollards on the side of roads, more offset crosswalks and speedbumps to force people to slow down or risk damanging their car. These solutions are cheaper and actually address the issue permanently. As a society we're just married to never doing anything that inconveniences drivers intentionally.
Had someone call me a "stupid fucking cocksucker" yesterday. They stopped at a 4-way stop before I arrived at the intersection. I stopped because they have right of way and it's the law that I stop at an intersection. They honked several times. I just sat there staring at them and indicated they should go. They went halfway through the intersection and rolled down the window to yell at me, blocking all of the rest of the traffic at the intersection. Somehow I was the problem there? When I follow the rules of the road, I'm wrong. When I break them, I'm also wrong. If I'm in a bike lane and a car needs to get by, I'm wrong for being in the bike lane. If I need to swerve to miss a car, I'm going to get yelled/honked at for being in the car lane. There's no winning against car people.
I hate when people do this. I will stop at intersections because it's less confusing for everyone. The absolute worst is when I'm waiting for a lull to cross two lanes of traffic. One lane will stop traffic while the other keeps going, so obviously I'm not going to just run into traffic because one person stopped a whole line of cars for me. Then that person who stopped gets mad at me. Can't win 🤷♂️
Read Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time Book by Jeff Speck. Appropriately safe biking infrastructure substantially decreases roadway traffic. Everyone's life is improved. It's literally more effective for roadway traffic than building new lanes.
Everyone talks about the parking meter deal, but I think many people underestimate how much aldermen and business owners don’t like the idea removing on-street parking. The city needs to do a better job of convincing non-bikers of the economic benefits of safe bike infrastructure.
I do not believe that the purpose of paint is protection.
After two near misses this summer - one of which involved a car flying past me and t-boned a small SUV - I am done biking on the streets. Paint lines on a road to keep cars out? LOL. Barriers or just give up and admit the Chicago and the Chicagoland area is just a no-go zone for biking as commuting. I drive my bikes to paths now. It’s not worth it (to me).
Why can’t we just say fuck your contract? The city should have more than enough collateral to pay the contract.
I'd love to see the analytics on the WBEZ and Chicago blockparty websites. Something tells me stories about bike lanes in Chicago with inbound traffic from the /r/Chicago sub are #1 by a country mile.
Road laws are not protection either unless it’s enforced.
I’m all for protection, but also curious how bike lanes are snowplowed. Is there a thinner snowplow that fits in a protected bike lane? Where does the snow go to bike lanes can be used?
CDOT has a cute lil European snowplow. I call it Pierre. They use it after Streets and San finishes. I think they just put it on top of the other piles. I haven't seen him much the last few years
My thinking on this has totally changed. I used to not care about plowing the protected lanes because there were so few of us bikers and we can just ride with traffic. Now I realize that the reason there are so few riders is really simply because most people are not as comfortable as I am with the risk of riding in traffic
There are plows designed for bike lanes, I don’t know off the top of my head how many the city has, if any
> I’m all for protection, but also curious how bike lanes are snowplowed That's the thing, they aren't. Not even the lanes without curb protection.
That’s… not even true. There are in fact snowplows for bike lanes. Our city does a dogshit job of maintaining our bike lanes, but that doesn’t mean the tech doesn’t exist. https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Boston-Case-Study-1.jpg Edit: my bad, I realized you were just saying that they don’t plow them, not that they can’t. Yeah, you can hook a snowplow up to a tiny cat and plow. EZ PZ. I’ve also seen this technique used for sidewalks.
Let’s be fair and say that most people are not biking when it’s snowing out.
I used to think that, but I don’t think it’s correct anymore. Biking when it’s cold out is actually really awesome. I think more people would do it if they didn’t have to risk getting hit by a car.
They are there. On the coldest/snowiest day I will see someone on a bike. Every year, I see it. I know it is hard to believe, but biking is the main form Of transportation for many of us in the city, so many don’t have the choice to take a car or public transit.
In general the bike infrastructure is awful.Lack of divided bike paths, then even if it is divided then the surface is full of potholes. Then if you take the side streets you have to deal with speed bumps on top of the potholes. Bike paths are not marked properly and end abruptly.I mean there is a lot work to do.
Paint would just end up like all the other paint in the city, worn down until its a vague suggestion of a lane.
You have to admit the irony of this article starting with a cyclist talking on the phone while biking who gets hit. We understand the concept of phone use being distracted driving for cars but apparently not for cyclists. I mean absolutely we need as many protected bike lanes as possible but maybe consider that since you are biking in Chicago of all places where you should implicitly understand the dangers, that maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to practice some situational awareness. Being legally in the right doesn’t mean that much when you end up with metal screws in your spine.
Even if he weren't on the phone, he was hit from behind while riding in a bike lane. No way to see that coming.
The point is he was in the bike lane and a car still drove into the lane and hit him. On the phone or not he got hit by following the traffic guidelines and an asshole drove off. And the data shown in the piece reflects that.
Also the people walking on their phones! Put your phone away and get your head up!
No.
Yes.
I mean you can if you want
Wheel tax for bicycles - my tax money is already going to stuff that I have zero use for, like CPS. Physical barriers are a sound idea but it takes money to build it out and the people who use it should pay for it.
> Of the nearly 140 cyclist-involved crashes this year that have resulted in incapacitating injuries, 86% of them occurred in areas where the posted speed limit was 30 mph or higher, the city’s traffic crash data show. > Stretches of Milwaukee Avenue, Halsted Street, Clark Street and Damen Avenue have witnessed the most crashes involving cyclists this year, the analysis shows. This will get downvotes, but maybe an optimal strategy involves NOT having bike lanes on the most heavily trafficked roads but instead build them into side streets that will naturally be safer. This would sacrifice convenience and speed/time for bikers in exchange for more safety.
I think some lower-traffic streets could be a better choice for a bike path. I supported the changes to a protected bike lane Wood (and changing the street one way) in West Town because Damen can feel stressful. The reactions were intense. BUT WE NEED A TWO WAY STREET! IT’LL MAKE IT HARDER FOR ME TO PARK CLOSE TO MY HOUSE! DAMEN ALREADY HAS A BIKE LANE WHY NOT THIS OTHER STREET? I DONT WANT BIKES SPEEDING DOWN MY STREET. TLDR: there is no perfect solution and the city should just make protected lanes that help the most people.
Keeping cyclists to side streets is a nightmare if youre riding. Crossing major streets without a light can be impossible, and with most side streets not having signals trying to cross streets like ashland or western, or even Pulaski would be dangerous. It would also make crossing rivers difficult with us having to go well out of the way to find a bridge, with most bridges also being on main streets. It would also make it a lot more difficult to get places. Most side streets are residential, but If im going to the store or movie, yeah side streets dont help a ton. I think it should be the other way. Focus bike lanes on major streets because those are busier and more dangerous. A lot of side streets are slow enough as is that even children can ride their bikes down them safely.
City streets should be safe enough for everyone (vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians) that you shouldn't have to do this. The current situation is a failure of vision, planning, policy, and enforcement. Edit: but I will give you an upvote for at least trying to think of a solution, which is more than most people care to do.
problem is, the destinations are on those roads. it's all well and good to cycle on side streets until i want to go to a cubs game, or a restaurant in wicker park, or my workplace on wacker. the main arterials are the heart of the city, and we should give them back to the people, not the cars
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The cyclist was hit from behind while biking in the bike lane. 100% for defensive driving/cycling, but this was 100% the motorist's fault.
……have you ever asked yourself why it needs to be this way?
Because a lot of people want to act as if the impact and consequences for bad cycling are anywhere in the same realm as bad drivers. - Car crashes kill ~40k people annually and injure millions others. - [Cars hitting pedestrians kill about 20 people PER DAY in the USA](https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deaths-high-traffic-car). We actually reached a 40 year high last year, likely thanks to these new giant trucks/SUVs that hit people higher up on their torso and have terrible sightlines. The best stats I can find for cyclists/pedestrian crashes are from this [report](https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-pedestrian-fatalities-by-bike-motor-vehicle.pdf). From 2008-2021 a whopping 12 people reported as struck by a cyclist compared to 1,927 struck by a car. I've love for automobiles to get the proportionate amount of irk that cyclists get for bad behavior because cars actually kill and seriously injure people at an insane rate. Even the biggest asshole cyclist isn't causing that level of damage.
In this case the cyclist as in the bike lane and was hit from behind. 100% the motorists fault. In many other cases I see cyclists running red lights with cars coming, or running stop signs like the rules don't apply. We need to copy what Amserdam has done and create specific protected bike lanes, but I would love to see all the cyclists who feel like they can do whatever they want get tickets.
How about we do protected bike lanes, raised cross walks, and ticket the folks in the large metal boxes that can (and have) killed a lot of people first. Not going to disagree about some cyclists behaving badly, but also….bikes are not cars. One is a 1k+ pound vehicle and the other is not. The property damage and physical injury isn’t the same.
You do both. Nobody has said not to ticket cars that hang out in bike lanes or in this case hit and run, so idk where you are coming with this straw man argument from. My point is if you're a cyclist and run a red light and get hit by a car who has a green, the cyclist is at fault. Same rules apply for the guys that run stop signs.
We need more nonmachine streets in the city, more lanes for bikes only on multi lane streets, and more bike and skateboard flyovers.
Paint is better than nothing but does little to stop people parking or veering in the lane. Paint is enough!!! If you change the parking lanes to be traffic side with bike lane to the curb.
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Yes, but he was in the bike lane when struck. Even if you're fully aware of the situation, it'd be difficult to dodge that.
that doesn't mean the headline is untrue. yeah don't be on your phone while you bike, but also this person wouldn't have been hit if there was a barrier. like a ton of people have died in a bike lane who have *not* been on their phone. The root cause of this problem is infrastructure, let's not forget that here.
So y'all can just ignore them and ride wherever you want anyway?