After reading about the new protected bike lane on Kinzie Street, people are speaking up.
From Chicargobike:
I have to admit that this doesn’t seem to be a location that fulfills any of the criteria I just mentioned – it seems instead to be directed at people who already are bicycle commuters to the Loop, largely young, fit adults. I don’t think they are the people who can benefit from a track and it should be placed elsewhere.
Excerpted from Protected bike lanes get a wobbly start.
From Duppie:
While the safety improvements will become clear in the crash statistics, there are a lot of things that can make a bikelane good or bad from a user perspective. They should have a formal evaluation process after 6 months or a year to see what works what and what doesn’t.
Excerpted from their comments on The Chainlink.
From anonymous:
I’m a big fan of protected bike lanes, but starting this lane at Milwaukee/DesPlaines just seems like a remarkably bad idea to me. The problem is that there’s a very steep downhill decline between Desplaines and Clinton. That means you constantly have lots of bikes traveling at very different speeds, and this lane is going to trap them in a small space designed for slower speeds. Right now, this works fine because the cyclists spread out all over the right lane (because of the downhill speeds, taking over the lane is no problem).
Excerpted from Saturday’s post on Steven Can Plan.
From BlueFairline:
Your photos remind me of another problem with this specific location, as you often have a Blommer truck parked on the westbound side with a large hose running between the truck and a nozzle on the side of the building. This hose will have to run across the protected bike lane. You’re going to have to have bicyclists either jump between the dividers into the traffic lane to go left of the truck, or stop and lift their bikes over the hose. Any advice on which option is the more reasonable for bicyclists?
From their comment on Chicagoist. Find more naysaying on this Chicagoist article.
What are your thoughts on the location, protected bike lanes, or bicycling in Chicago?
A group of people riding their bikes wait at the light at Division and Milwaukee, going southbound.