Experts Lobby City Council for More Protected Bike Lanes

Josh Koonce

Bicycle transportation experts testified at a meeting of City Council's Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee yesterday for an expansion of protected bike lanes and an improved pedestrian, bike and public transit-friendly environment.

Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia and now president of the New York-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, told the committee he thought Chicago could do better with its bike lanes.

"A bicycle way which cannot be safely used by an 8-year-old is not a bike way. This is why I don’t think much of these bike lanes that are just painted. People need to feel safe.”

Peñalosa said "bike highways" connecting major streets to the bike path could multiply bicycle usage in Chicago and even argued the creation of protected bike lanes is democratic. "It shows that a citizen on a $30 bike is just as important as a person in a $30,000 car."

Other options to improve traffic gridlock in Chicago include a proposal endorsed by the Metropolitan Planning Council to set up "bus rapid transit" - with lanes wide enough to support automobiles and a dedicated lane for bus traffic. Earlier this year CTA proposed a similar bus line.

Some aldermen, like 35th Ward Ald. Rey Colon, echoed Peñalosa and offered first-person accounts of experiences bicycling in Europe. Others such as 33rd Ward Ald. Dick Mell, expressed reservations about expanding protected bike lanes wondered how Chicago's antiquated infrastructure could support these proposals.

Cities such as Washington, DC and New York seem to manage. Aldermen like Mell have also managed to make the antiquated infrastructure work when they're wedging in a Costco or Home Depot.