More than 60 businesses now offer special discount programs and events in Chicago’s first Bike Friendly Business Districts in Lakeview and West Town.

Half of school children walked or biked to school in 1969, but only 13 percent were doing it in 2009.

Between 2006 and 2012, people driving cars hit nearly 19,000 children who were walking or biking in Illinois, and 54 percent of those children were hit within one block of a school.

Biking to work more than tripled in Chicago from 2000 to 2012.

An average of nearly 125,000 daily bike trips are taken in Chicago, most of which — nearly 91,000 — are errand-related trips like going to the store or the library.

The Chicago region’s current hub-and-spoke transit system leaves nearly half a million Cook County residents stranded in transit deserts.

Post image:  In the latest Chicago Tribune story on the city’s photo enforcement program, the reporter quotes national safety experts who seem more concerned with keeping cars moving as fast as possible than making our streets safer. The Trib uses its handpicked experts to make the case that Chicago’s yellow light times are too short and we should lengthen the […]

  Center for Disease Control, “Adolescent and School Health: Guidelines and Strategies”. Available online:http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/npao/schoolenvironment.htm; See also: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-trends/glo… Illinois Department of Transportation, Illinois Roadway Crash Data. Garrett-Peltier, Heidi. “Pedestrian and Bicycle Infrastructure: A National Study of Employment Impacts”. The Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts. June 2011. Available online: http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/published_study/PERI_ABikes_Octo… Illinois Department of Transportation, Illinois Roadway Crash Data. […]

Post image:  As voters in Chicago prepare to vote in runoff elections on April 7 for mayor and 19 city council seats, suburban voters will go to the polls that same day to elect leaders with the potential to shape the future of biking, walking and public transit in the suburbs. Based on input from our members and supporters throughout […]

  WHAT Every day in Illinois, five kids are hit by cars while walking or biking within one block of a school.   In 1969, more than half of kids walked or biked to school. Today, only 13 percent report doing it. This reduction in everyday physical activity contributes to an increase in chronic diseases, like diabetes and heart disease, […]