Next protected bike lane: Jackson in West Loop

Bikes now nearly half of traffic at Kinzie

07/25/2011 6:19 PM

By Ben Meyerson
Editor

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Jackson Boulevard in the West Loop will be the next street in Chicago to get blocked-off bike lanes, the Chicago Department of Transportation announced Monday morning.

The announcement came as new CDOT commissioner Gabe Klein christened the city’s first protected bike lanes on Kinzie Street between Milwaukee Avenue and Wells Street in the Fulton River District.

The Kinzie bike lanes got off the ground soon after Mayor Rahm Emanuel was inaugurated and Klein was installed as CDOT chief. Emanuel made a campaign promise to install 25 miles of protected bike lanes in the city each year; the Kinzie lanes are half a mile long.

The Jackson lanes, on the other hand, will be a mile and a half long, stretching through the heart of the West Loop from Damen Avenue to Halsted Street. The bike lanes will be added as Jackson is resurfaced this year.

CDOT said the bike lanes on Kinzie are already having a big effect on bike usage in the city — 48 percent of morning traffic at the southbound intersection of Milwaukee and Kinzie last week was bikes, they said.

“That’s exactly the kind of change we’re hoping to achieve,” Klein said in a statement.

The half mile of bike lanes on Kinzie cost $140,000 to install; CDOT did not yet have an estimate for the cost of the Jackson lanes.

For more information on this story, read the July 28 issue of Chicago Journal or check back to ChicagoJournal.com for updates.


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By Mike from West Loop
Posted: 07/28/2011 10:31 PM

I'm not sure this helps anything. I would hate one spot observation showing 48% bike traffic on lower Milwaukee Ave. to change policy. It seems that the safety issues still exist on Kinzie, with bicycles blowing through the south lanes of the Canal and Kinzie interchange without slowing or looking, and cars not being careful. It also jams northbound Canal traffic during rush hour through the railroad crossing; it's a matter of time before there's a car/rail collision.