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Participatory budgeting celebrates five years

Dec 15, 2017 | by Active Trans

Participatory budgeting (PB) is celebrating five years in Chicago! PB is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget.Every year, each ward in the city of Chicago receives $1.3 million in "menu money" that is spent according to the discretion of the ward's alderman.Alderman Joe Moore of the 49th ward in Rogers Park was the first to implement participatory budgeting for his menu money in the United States. Since his initial trial, the concept has caught on in multiple wards. This money can be used for anything related to infrastructure in the ward, such as street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs, alley improvements, bike lanes, pedestrian refuge islands, public art and park benches to...

Tags: Advocacy, Bicycling, Chicago North Side, Walking

31-days of car-free suburban life

Dec 14, 2017 | by Active Trans

Growing up middle class in rural Pennsylvania, Katie Shaw Thompson never imagined life without a car. Now a resident in the City of Elgin, Katie’s opinion on transportation, what’s possible and what should be possible, has shifted. Katie is a proud four-season bike commuter, a mother of two squirrely preschoolers, and an ordained pastor. Over her adult moves from Pennsylvania to North Carolina to California to Indiana to Iowa and now Illinois, she has directly seen a wide variety of ways transportation and infrastructure effect our lives in the US. That's a big reason why she feels so fortunate to be living in a suburban city with great bones for bike commuting and a big part of why she's so...

Tags: Advocacy, Bicycling, Walking, West Suburbs

Brookfield’s first bicycle boulevard is here

Nov 30, 2017 | by Active Trans

The Village of Brookfield is now home to one of the first bicycle boulevards in the Chicagoland suburbs!What exactly is a bicycle boulevard? Sometimes termed a "neighborhood greenway," a bike boulevard is a low-speed street that prioritizes bicycle traffic. Bicycle boulevards use signage, paint and other traffic calming features to create a safer, more comfortable environment for all road users. At the beginning of November, the village added the finishing touches to its bicycle boulevard, which is located on Arden Avenue near Kiwanis Park and the Brookfield Zoo.In addition to the boulevard, the village installed curb bump-outs, a high visibility crosswalk and better pedestrian access to the adjacent park to improve the overall safety of kids playing and people travelling...

Tags: Advocacy, Bicycling, Planning, Walking, West Suburbs

Kids on the move in Highland Park

Nov 16, 2017 | by Active Trans

No one forgets how to ride a bike. They just forget that they should be riding a bike. That's why Highland Park's Bike Walk Advisory Group (BWAG) teamed up with Highland Park School District 112 to encourage students to walk or bike to school.Inspired by the national Bike-Walk to School Day, members of BWAG contacted every elementary and middle school principal in town.The ask seemed simple: urge students to get to school under their own foot power. Seven of the thirteen principals jumped on board immediately, recognizing the benefits of promoting the event.Originally scheduled for October 4, bad weather compelled the schools to postpone the event until October 13. With clear skies, the day was a success. Hundreds of students...

Tags: Advocacy, Bicycling, North Suburbs, Planning, transit, Walking

Proposed distracted walking ordinance misses real problem

Nov 9, 2017 | by Active Trans

The distracted walking ordinance proposed by Ald. Burke and Beale at Wednesday’s City Council meeting misdiagnoses the problem contributing to traffic deaths involving people walking.The ordinance proposes fining people who are crossing the street while using a mobile device “in a manner that averts their visual attention to that device.” The fine would be $90 for the first offense and $500 for the second.Active Trans encourages everyone on our streets to travel safely, but fining people who are legally crossing in the crosswalk – no matter what they’re doing – would not make our streets safer. People walking are at risk because of careless drivers and poorly designed streets, and that should be the focus. The law already requires cars...

Tags: Advocacy, Bicycling, Education, Planning, transit, Walking

Raising ride-hailing fee to fund public transit makes sense

Oct 18, 2017 | by Active Trans

Mayor Emanuel’s proposal to raise fees on Uber and Lyft rides to pay for public transit upgrades is good news for everyone who cares about preserving healthy, sustainable and equitable transportation options across Chicago.The mayor introduced the potential increase in his budget address this week. If approved by Chicago City Council, 15 cents will be added to the current 52 cents per ride city fee in 2018.In 2019, the fee will increase another five cents. All the new revenue generated will be dedicated to public transit improvements.The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) faces a $13 billion backlog of repairs just to maintain current bus and rail infrastructure. The agency has dealt with a series of funding cuts in recent years, including...

Tags: Advocacy, Bicycling, Chicago Central, Chicago North Side, Chicago West & Southwest Side, Walking

Ride hailing is increasing congestion

Aug 30, 2017 | by Active Trans

Recent reports out of San Francisco and New York City find that ride-hailing companies like Lyft and Uber are contributing to increased traffic congestion and could be hurting transit ridership.The San Francisco study found that ride-hailing vehicles travel approximately 570,000 miles within city limits on a typical weekday.This accounts for 20 percent of all local daily vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and includes both in-service and out-of-service mileage. Ride-hailing trips are concentrated in the densest and most congested parts of San Francisco, including along major public transit lines, and operated extensively on neighborhood streets.The study authors worked with researchers from Northeastern University to develop software that collected data from the Lyft and Uber applications over time, a work-around due to the lack...

Tags: Advocacy, Bicycling, Walking

Better trail connections in DuPage County

Aug 15, 2017 | by Active Trans

Several of our supporters recently attended DuPage County’s public meeting about changes coming to the Illinois Prairie Path. We are happy to report that the county is proposing a new side path called the Eola Connector (see image) to improve trail connectivity between the Aurora Branch of the Illinois Prairie Path and several other nearby paths and destinations.The Eola Connector proposal includes a 10-foot, paved, multi-use path along Eola Road to connect the Aurora Branch to the Batavia Spur, the DuPage Technology Corridor Trail, and Metea Valley High School and its shared-use path. The proposal also includes the widening of the Eola Road bridge over Interstate 88 to accommodate the multi-use path. Once the design is approved, the county will...

Tags: Advocacy, Bicycling, Planning, transit, Walking, West Suburbs

More protected bike lanes coming to Evanston

Aug 11, 2017 | by Active Trans

Evanston is on move with installing more protected bike lanes on its streets.Earlier this summer, the City of Evanston began construction of a two-way barrier protected bike lane along a 1.9-mile stretch of Sheridan Road and Chicago Avenue. The bike lane is part of Evanston’s Sheridan Rd.-Chicago Ave. Improvement Project.Phase one of the project included the recently completed protected bike lane on Chicago Avenue. Phase two, which is currently in progress, involves extending the bike lane north along Sheridan Road to Lincoln Street.Expect road closures at several intersections along Sheridan Road between August 7 and 21 while pavement construction is in progress.In addition to the bi-directional bike lane, which will be separated from traffic by a concrete barrier, the project...

Tags: Advocacy, Bicycling, North Suburbs, transit, Walking

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