Grid Chicago

A message to those waiting for the 22/Clark bus in Andersonville at Clark Street and Bryn Mawr avenue says they cannot wait inside the Subway sandwich shop. Photo by Brian Morrissey.

See more “commercial statements” in Grid Shots on Grid Chicago.

The upcoming NATO summit will greatly alter how people travel in the Loop, South Loop, Museum Campus, and Bronzeville areas May 19, 20, and 21 (Saturday to Monday). Travel on the Kennedy, Dan Ryan, and Stevenson Expressways will be affected. Transit agencies and other news sources have posted all the relevant information, linked on this page. If you are traveling to these areas, or normally travel through these areas, spend time reviewing the below webpages. This post will be updated as information changes.

View a summary of how NATO affects travel on Grid Chicago. 

We’ve stopped updating the Grid Network page; no new posts since mid-April appear there. We coded the function myself and it was using too many server resources to operate, slowing down the website. The Network was build on top of our Links page, so that lives on. Here are some new links!

See the new websites we recommend on Grid Chicago. 

At a press conference in Englewood Friday, CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein announced a $4.1 million project to repave roads under 14 viaducts in 13 different wards across the city (average cost $250,000 per viaduct).

See a list and map of locations. 

We contacted Jose Lopez, longtime director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC) for his perspective on the new bike lanes on Division Street along Humboldt Park’s Paseo Boricua business district. He had read yesterday’s post on the subject, and he feels it’s not quite accurate to say that his organization objected to the lanes when the Chicago Department of Transportation first proposed them in 2003.

Read what he said on Grid Chicago. 

A new plan for the Chicago Department of Transportation was released today and Grid Chicago got to talk to commissioner Gabe Klein this morning about the Chicago Forward CDOT Action Agenda’s development, strategies, and goals.

Read more about the Action Agenda and our interview on Grid Chicago. 

The LaSalle Street Metra station is easy to spot from some angles, but largely hidden and disconnected from others. Guest author Anne Alt describes the deficiencies in simple signage that would help lead transit users from CTA to Metra and vice versa. 

See her photo essay on Grid Chicago.

Bicycling doesn’t discriminate. It’s good for people of all ethnicities and income levels because it’s a cheap, convenient, healthy way to get around, and a positive activity for youth and families. So it’s a shame that cycling, especially for transportation, is often seen as something that only white, privileged people would want to do. It’s especially sad when proposals to add bike facilities in low-income communities of color, which would be beneficial to the people who live there, are viewed as an invasion by outsiders.

Read the full story about “white lanes” and bike lanes

The passing rain storms and fog have allowed construction crews to continue building Chicago’s bikeway network, including more buffered and protected bike lanes. We received a photo this morning of a new buffered bike lane going in on Division Street between Western and California. This is especially delightful news because the Division Street bike lane, from its eastern beginning at Ashland Avenue, stopped abruptly at Western Avenue, nine years ago, even though Division Street maintains the same width west of there. 

See a proposed schedule of bike lane installations on Grid Chicago.