second is how stressful the street environment is. Right turns, left turns, cars, buses, pedestrians, accelerating, breaking, trying to get around each other.
Not a happy place for so many people to be out riding their bikes.
Cycling in Chicago has certainly succeeded in the brave hipster demographic. But if we're going to get mainstream Chicagoers out riding, we need to make the streets more inviting to a broader spectrum.
Where do the kids ride? How can we get them to school, the park, and the grocery store safe and sound?
How can we make Chicago a place where parents feel relaxed about giving their 12-year-old free reign to ride unsupervised anywhere in the neighborhood?
How can Chicago streets be the kind of place where the average senior citizen can ride around town carefree?
8 and 80. The criteria for urban cycling infrastructure should be whether it is suitable for 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds.
I'd like to offer 10 ideas for the future of cycling in Chicago. Some are tried and true, some, like the way I mentioned, we've already begun working on, and some are experiments from other cities.
There are all ideas that I think are a nice fit for Chicago's context and will build on our growing cycling culture.
It's going to be fast. Here we go. Idea number one, open streets. What a fight to drive where every weekend.
On the Saturday last August, Chicago opened up 8 miles of car-free streets in Boulevard, linking Logan Square, Humble Park, Garfield Park, and Little Village, turning neighborhood streets into trails and play space for whoever wanted to get some healthy exercise.
Auto traffic had to cross the route like it crossed normally at the signals and intersections. The model, as David showed, is a sick lovia in Bogota, Colombia, and 16 other Latin American cities.
These happen every single weekend of the year. Many U.S. cities are giving it a try. New York did three summer streets events last year.
This is the first of five Sunday parkways that are happening in Portland this summer, and San Francisco is doing nine Sunday streets events in seven different neighborhoods.
Two, slow traffic down.
Chicago already does a good job with speed humps, curb extensions, and traffic circles. In Europe, the big thing is the 30K zone.
Everybody feels a lot more comfortable riding when traffic is going under 18 miles per hour. Berlin, Germany was cycling to over 10% of all travel in less than 10 years. A big piece of it was 75% of the city is 30K zones.
Traffic calm zones or home zones are all over Europe. These are in Spain, France. These require speeds under 12 miles per hour.
In Chicago, there's a proposed home zone redesigning Albany Street near Ketsey in Fullerton.
And Luan showed this picture. With key automatic support, the city has been proposing some slower, better street transformation. It's inviting. Let's show support for more of this.
To be a number three, cycle tracks. Here in front of Portland State University, the basic bike lane has been widened. The parked cars have been moved over to the left, and a painted bike buffer has been created.
This is Pennsylvania Avenue, America's main street. There's a brand new two-way protected cycle track in the center median.
Philadelphia has taken out traveling and added a protected, or as Luan called it, a buffer bike lane. These are busy central Philly streets, pine, and spruce.
New York is probably the most committed to creating a network of protected bike lanes and cycle track. Ninth Avenue has been a huge success.
Indianapolis just got a cool $20 million from the feds to expand their cultural trail, also a cycle track.
David showed what San Francisco has done on Market Street, and then a few weeks ago they painted it green. The story is that many streets in the United States are starting to look like Copenhagen and Hamster Day.
Number four, bike boulevards. Bike boulevards are lightly traveled streets that don't have bike lanes. Instead, other special improvements are made to make it easier to take the side streets across town.
Portland has special designs to help the cyclists across busy streets and discourage through auto traffic.
Chicago Bicycle Program is planning some demonstrations on bike boulevards here in Chicago. Number five, bike parking.
Chicago is the best at on-street bike racks, though we may need a few more now that the meters are gone.
We also have the excellent Millennium Park Bike Station and expertly planned transit station parking throughout the transit system.
But maybe we'd like some of these here. This is a covered on-street parking station in New York City. Bike parking starts at home.
It's got to be convenient to get to your bike. The landlord is trying, but demand is high.
All over Chicago, residents and apartment buildings are trying to solve the outside bike parking problem.
In Amsterdam, it's easy to just pile your everyday bikes on the sidewalk. Dutch cyclists can't read signs either.
Feats in me on the Hagen Klassen. I'd like something like this out in front of my house.
Take a look at my street. They've already wisely designated portions of the street for public use as free public parking.
Maybe a spot will open up for my bike shelter.
New public spaces. New York City started with the biggest, baddest urban intersections in America.
They went out, bought a few lawn chairs and voila!
Nice places to cycle are included. You would think that such dramatic transformations to the street would be politically impossible,
but you can win the support of businesses in the public.
First, you need to put them in cheaply. Do them on a temporary basis. Then, if they work, they get to stay.
You can start small. This is called a parklet. It's in San Francisco.
There are three parking spaces that have been transformed into an outdoor cafe and bike parking at the request of the businesses there.
Business is booming.
Number seven, wayfinding. Help people get to where they need to go. Strasbourg, France's bike system is very ambitious.
Chicago also has some excellent bike wayfinding signs.
The new Google Maps bike there is great beta concept. So far, I'm not very impressed with the route selection.
Here in Chicago, GoRoom is much better. It's done by the RTA and fully presents all the choices you need for your new omnimodal lifestyle.
The new active trans map is out, featuring insider routes from cyclists all over the metro area.
But folks, on a bike, you can talk to people. So, guys, learn to ask for and give directions.
Number eight, better bikes. On sale now at the sporting goods store in my neighborhood.
In Chicago, one could live without a suspension fork and less than 21 gears.
But for $370, you're going to wish they would have included lights, fenders, a kickstand, and a rack to carry your beach bag.
In civilized places, bikes come fully equipped. But I need to use. Anyone for a picnic?
Bike trailers let you do weekly grocery shopping with ease. Danish IKEA customers have free use of store trailers.
Be a long pole from Schomburg.
Buy your bike fully equipped or retrofit with fenders, locks, kickstand, carrying rack, and other essentials.
Make your bike easy and fun to use. Number nine, public bikes.
Maybe you don't need your own bike. Here, our mayor tries out a fleet bike from the famous Paris bike system.
Paris has 400 staff operating the system on a daily basis and a station every block in every direction.
Here's the station distribution of Barcelona's B-Sing system.
Last month, as was mentioned, the first large-scale public bike system began in Denver.
Here's their map. It's soon to expand to 500 bikes at 50 stations.
And as David mentioned just a week ago, Minneapolis launched Nice Ride.
There will be 1,000 bikes at 60 stations by the end of the summer.
So, Chicago, 100 bikes is a great start, but it appears to be a midwestern trend.
So, I think we're all interested in a big bike system, big public bike system here in Chicago.
Number ten, get going. Take action. Get involved.
Pick something you've seen today from any of the presentations and make it happen.
Talk to your condo association with ideas about fixing the mess in the bike room.
Help a senior citizen in the neighborhood fix up their bike and take them on their first ride to the store.
Put vendors in a basket on your own bike and go shopping.
Get the whole neighborhood together.
Have Cynthia Bell from Active Transit. Cynthia Bell from Active Transit is planning on the block.
Come out and lead a brainstorming discussion.
Draw up your plans for transformed streets. Anybody can do it.
Show your ideas to your alderman.
Take great cologne or whoever your alderman might be for a bike ride.
Talk to them about better cycling and better fashion.
Or go down to the high park and see Jackie Grimshaw's next door neighbor.
For her, next door neighbor still looks in a while on a neighborhood bike ride.
But pick something and make it happen. Together we can transform Chicago for cycling.
