hotfoot
06-11-2006, 08:14 PM
CHICAGO'S MASTER PLAN
DON'T DRIVE. JUST BIKE.
City peddling new proposal for 500-mile network of paths to be finished by 2015
By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah and James Janega
Tribune staff reporters
Published June 11, 2006
Chicago is set to unveil new plans for becoming a bicyclist's haven. And this time, it means business.
The new Bike 2015 Plan wastes little time on breezy rides in the park. Instead, the city's Department of Transportation is bent on getting people to bike to work, to school, to stores and to mass transit stops, cobbling together a 500-mile network of designated routes.
Understanding that bicyclists' greatest enemies--aside from sloth--are car doors, right-lane passers and other street perils, planners looked around the world for new safety ideas.
From Geneva, Switzerland, they got the idea of raised bike lanes, a layer of pavement above street level and below the curb that would help dissuade motorists from veering into cycling territory. By 2010, the city hopes to experiment with raised lanes in a few locations.
In Copenhagen, Cambridge and other places, planners saw bicycle lanes colored a startling shade of teal green, thermoplastic markings they hope to duplicate at some Chicago intersections to try to warn right-turning cars to watch for bikes.
Like its predecessor in 1992, the new strategic plan lays out the city's vision to make bicycling an integral part of Chicagoans' daily lives.
It offers few details and specifies no costs, though it does point to federal grants and private funding.
The plan does not say where the new miles of bike lanes and improvements would be located.
But, with a strong track record of delivering for cyclists, the city is thinking big: a bike route within a half-mile of every resident; a 50-mile circuit of bike trails, with some off-road paths to be announced later this year; 185 miles of new bikeways altogether.
By 2015, planners hope, 5 percent of all trips shorter than 5 miles long will be made by bike... (longer version at chicagotribune.com)
DON'T DRIVE. JUST BIKE.
City peddling new proposal for 500-mile network of paths to be finished by 2015
By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah and James Janega
Tribune staff reporters
Published June 11, 2006
Chicago is set to unveil new plans for becoming a bicyclist's haven. And this time, it means business.
The new Bike 2015 Plan wastes little time on breezy rides in the park. Instead, the city's Department of Transportation is bent on getting people to bike to work, to school, to stores and to mass transit stops, cobbling together a 500-mile network of designated routes.
Understanding that bicyclists' greatest enemies--aside from sloth--are car doors, right-lane passers and other street perils, planners looked around the world for new safety ideas.
From Geneva, Switzerland, they got the idea of raised bike lanes, a layer of pavement above street level and below the curb that would help dissuade motorists from veering into cycling territory. By 2010, the city hopes to experiment with raised lanes in a few locations.
In Copenhagen, Cambridge and other places, planners saw bicycle lanes colored a startling shade of teal green, thermoplastic markings they hope to duplicate at some Chicago intersections to try to warn right-turning cars to watch for bikes.
Like its predecessor in 1992, the new strategic plan lays out the city's vision to make bicycling an integral part of Chicagoans' daily lives.
It offers few details and specifies no costs, though it does point to federal grants and private funding.
The plan does not say where the new miles of bike lanes and improvements would be located.
But, with a strong track record of delivering for cyclists, the city is thinking big: a bike route within a half-mile of every resident; a 50-mile circuit of bike trails, with some off-road paths to be announced later this year; 185 miles of new bikeways altogether.
By 2015, planners hope, 5 percent of all trips shorter than 5 miles long will be made by bike... (longer version at chicagotribune.com)