Innovative bike lane design enters Chicago's Loop. Could it work in Springfield?

This weekend, I noticed crews painting an interesting bike lane layout in downtown Chicago. I snapped this picture in the South Loop on Dearborn, just south of Harrison.



After taking a second look, I noticed that the lane uses ideas I've heard about but haven't seen together in action. First, it's a two lane bicycle path, even though car traffic on Dearborn is one-way.

The bike lane is along the curb. If you look in the background, you'll see that there's still off-the-curbside street parking. There's a striped buffer zone in between the parking lane and the bike lane so that no one hits a biker while they open the car door. Pretty smart.

It didn't take a monstrous multi-million dollar construction project either. It just took a weekend of work crews repainting lines. It eliminates one car lane but traffic wasn't too crowded on this road anyway.

The bike lane will go through downtown Chicago. I found the city press release and noticed this quote:

“The Dearborn Street two-way protected bike lane project will balance roadway space to ensure pedestrians, transit users, bicyclists and motorists can travel along and across the street safely,” Klein said.

The goal of balancing pedestrian, bicycle and motor use reminds me of a very similarly worded recommendation in Springfield's SDAT study.

Roads in downtown Springfield cater to one type of user. They're designed for workers to get in and out of downtown as quickly as possible. That's understandable since there's a large population who commute from the edge of town, or the surrounding small towns, and go home as soon as the workday ends.

The many one-ways are not so convenient for out-of-town visitors, or anyone attempting to travel from one downtown destination to another. The clear message communicated by Springfield's downtown roads is, "get in and out fast, but don't stick around."

Springfield's narrow focus on cars is a barrier to downtown bike lanes as well. Some city leaders react with shocked indignation at the suggestion of removing a little curbside parking or painting new stripes on a road. But, reaching the goals of attracting new people and business activity to downtown requires rethinking 30-year old assumptions about transportation.

Edit: I'm adding a pic with a better view of the parking lane and buffer zone...

No bike lanes to new sports superstore

Over the weekend I went to Scheels, the new sports superstore behemoth in Springfield. They have a large section of bicycles and riding gear. They did a good job putting bike racks out front. They even have a large statue of a bicycle rider.

And yet, there are no bike lanes on the newly built roads leading to this destination for cyclists. Another episode in city planning brilliance!

This repeats the huge blunder of not extending the bike lanes around UIS onto roads built for the new South 6th Street Wal-mart. It was the perfect opportunity to connect bike lanes on the south end of town to the city center. The opportunity was wasted. Now that the roads are built, we're likely to be stuck with these mistakes for years or decades.

I give credit to planners for redesigning the new MacAruthur I-72 interchange (after intense public pressure) so that it doesn't cut off a recreational bike path. But, cycling isn't just for recreational riders. Bicycle lanes should be included on every new road.

Bike lanes aren't a new, experimental idea to be viewed with skepticism. It should simply be done. There's no excuse for planing our infrastructure with a 1950's car-centric mindset.

I had to get that off my chest.

The store itself is impressively ginormous. They have higher quality gear than other outdoors stores in town. The clothing and shoe sections were nice. The prices seem comparable to REI.

We went on a fun/terrifying Ferris wheel ride inside the store.



They have a talking Abraham Lincoln that delivers the Gettysburg Address.



Seeing the guy in a wet suit feeding fish in their large aquarium was entertaining.

Their 100,000 donation to United Way is commendable. However, the local United Way doesn't support environmental causes. Perhaps Scheels will also give to area conservation and environmental organizations since some of their profits depend on those groups successfully protecting natural areas for people to recreate in. Yes, this hint is self-serving but it makes sense.

Anyway, the store is worth going to see at least once whether or not you buy anything. Just be careful if you try riding your bike there.