We love that the Sloop continues to become more bike friendly. In our opinion it makes our neighborhood and city feel more international. Most importantly it offers alternative modes of transportation and makes people less reliant on their cars.
One of the biggest developments on this front was the announcement that Dearborn would become a two-way bike street. Some have even gone on to say this is a "game changer" for biking in the city of Chicago. While we could see why they would feel this way, we will take a more cautious view. Regardless, it's good for bike enthusiasts.
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| New Bike Stop Lights Being Installed on Dearborn (Photo from GRID Chicago) |
The blog GRID Chicago recently had a post providing some updates on the project (including pictures of the new bike stop lights that are being installed). The most interesting piece in the post was a relatively vague update on the timing of the project:
I talked to one worker and asked about the construction timeline. He said, “Rumorville says ASAP. First the striping needs to be done, and that has to wait for several 50 degree days”. He also explained that the signal programming is still be designed. This being fall, there aren’t many of those days left before the end of the year, before which Mayor Emanuel said the cycle track would be complete. The 5-day forecast shows all 50+ degree days, including a high of 61 on Friday.So what we read from this is that it's extremely unlikely that this will be finishing up in 2012. But that's fine as long as progress continues to happen.
While some people ride their bikes in the winter...most of us do not and can happily wait until the spring!