Tag: Cities

Federal funding primer and why projects take so long to construct

June 15, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Many Chicagoans who ride bikes are in awe (myself included) at how fast the Kinzie Street protected bike lane (the first of its kind in the city) has been designed and constructed in four weeks.

I explain how it’s been possible to do something so fast:

  1. Federally funded projects, like “commuter bicycle parking” (u-rack manufacturing and installation, using CMAQ federal funding) in Chicago, are under the control of the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), which must review and approve every design.  If it takes IDOT six months to tell the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) it does NOT approve and requires revisions, it will take IDOT another six months to review and approve the revised design. I experienced this directly when I was modifying the current bike parking contract. That’s one extra year added to a project based on a cumbersome state review process. Cities and their mayors have been advocating the federal government to give federal aid directly to cities so they can work faster.
  2. All design work must be completed and approved by everyone before a contract can be advertised for competitive bidding. Federal funds generally cannot be used to pay for local city forces, like CDOT crews, to do the work.
  3. Then comes the procurement process…

[This process is nearly the same for all cities.]

While there is room for improvement in the above process, it’s may not be fair to blame the City or CDOT for taking a long time to implement a project like Stony Island (tentatively scheduled for 2014), when Chicago doesn’t have authority over it’s own roads*.

If every project were locally funded – CDOT is funding the project with budgeted but unallocated funds – and approved, we could see a lot more projects like the Kinzie Street protected bike lane happening very fast. It should be obvious, also, that Mayor Emanuel and new CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein are extremely motivated to show their commitment to the transition plan as well as complete this project by the Bike To Work Day Rally on Friday, June 17th.

*This can be interpreted in two ways:

  1. There are roads in the city that are under the jurisdiction of the state providing an additional burden when it comes to modifying them.
  2. The process described above removes from the City authoritative control of its roads when projects modifying those roads are funded in part by the federal government.

Construction on Kinzie Street has been happening at a breakneck pace.

Where would you ride

May 30, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Infrastructure and street design is the most influencing factor in how we behave and maneuver our vehicles (bicycles included, even if Illinois doesn’t think so and California does) in the roadway.

I’m taking a non-scientific poll.

1. Given the lane configuration in the photo below, and the dearth of vehicles in any lane you see, where would you ride your bicycle, and why?

2. Now take a look at this photo mockup of a protected bike lane on Milwaukee Avenue through the 1st Ward in Wicker Park. Where would you ride your bicycle, and why?

Which facility would you prefer to ride your bicycle in?

1, or 2?

Read more about cycle tracks/protected bike lanes on Steven Can Plan.

Maureen and I are very similar

May 13, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I don’t know Maureen, and she doesn’t know me, but Streetsblog contributor, and #bikeNYC portrait photographer Dmitry Gudkov, wrote about “why Maureen rides.”

I wrote about why I ride in a submission to Urban Velo magazine last December for its segment, “I Love Riding in the City.” I had a pretty lame answer to, “Why do you love riding in the city?” saying “It’s a lot easier than riding in the suburbs.”

I read Maureen’s response to why cycling is her favorite form of transport in New York.

“I like to keep moving; I don’t ever want to wait, if I can help it. But more than anything I love that the bike lets me be physical in the city.” Her favorite time to ride is late at night, with the solitary journeys giving her a sense of the city she wouldn’t have otherwise. “When I’m biking home from my studio at 1 or 2 in the morning along the empty bike path, I feel like this is my park. This piece of the city belongs to me.”

And now I want to expand my response:

I can’t stand waiting! That’s what you have to do when you drive a car or take public transit. You wait for the traffic in front of you to move, or you wait for the bus or train! (I admit that the Chicago Transit Authority’s Bus and Train Trackers allow you to wait less if you plan your trip well.) By riding a bicycle, you only have to wait for the light to change!

Then this past weekend I was remarking to my friend Francesco that I prefer riding through Chicago in the middle of the night because less traffic makes the street quieter, less congested, and less polluted. This stretch of the street belongs to me.

Me riding home late at night after a concert seeing Pantha du Prince at Empty Bottle in West Town.

Barriers to getting going on a bike

March 7, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Open thread:

Gas prices are still predicted to rise and possibly meet 2008 levels. That means more people will be biking and making more trips by bike than by car.

What are the barriers to sustained (read, will be back next year) biking in the city?

  1. Obtaining a bike?
  2. Knowing how to get places?
  3. Knowing other people who bike?
  4. What do you think?

Photo of Annie in Palo Alto, California, by Richard Masoner.

Europe trip recap: List of cities I visited

January 18, 2011 / / 0 Comments

All links lead to a photo or photoset of that city. More links will be added as I upload more photos. Cities are in the order I traveled through Europe, over 18 days.

All blogs about this trip are under the tag, Europe trip.

A bike “jam” – everyone in the photo is performing a “Copenhagen left” or box turn.

The Schwebebahn is the world’s oldest operating monorail that operates daily in the North Rhine-Westphalia city of Wuppertal, Germany.