We made it to the meeting yesterday. Very special thanks to Cdot for having us (despite our loud toddler ** and a late extra parent on the way to ferry the small children away). Thanks to them also for letting our oldest ask questions. They had plenty to celebrate and more to share about the comprehensive sea change the Mayor plans for cycling and traveling in Chicago during this term. Cdot had ...
a small feast from streetsfilms.org to illustrate cycletracks and bike boulevards. Visit the site for a slew of educational videos from cycletracks to traffic calming to how complete streets work. Ash posted the pdfs from the meeting on the Chainlink and Steven Vance will have a great write up I'm sure- link here.
I needed to leave the meeting with our smallest but the older guys asked to stay and listen. Having ridden every kind of lane discussed in other cities, they could not believe that Chicago will be changing too. It was very exciting, and listening to the Mayor speaking in the video from the Kinzie track about creating a "world class cycling city because we must to compete in the world" was incredible. (The kids also loved seeing the wonderful Bike Ambassadors whom they are crazy about.)
Co-hosts Ben Gomberg and Luann Hamilton -- head of the bike program and Deputy director of Cdot respectively -- said that there would be public meetings to talk about how the plan develops as it takes shape. The touchstone for the different kinds of infrastructure they plan to use is the NACTO. Here is a link to Soles and Spokes where they explain the guide here. Sam Schwartz Engineering will be working on the project for the city. Visit the Chicago Bike Program to learn about co-host Ben Gomberg and his staff working on the changes to come here. The Bike 2015 plan is on this site as well.
The next meeting will be the 14th of September but keep your eye out for public meetings about the new plan as it takes shape! Hooray! Where do families cycling fit in with this new plan? Well, Cdot kindly welcomed our family and our questions at the meeting. I think that being a part of shaping the plan as much as one can for every cyclist in the city will be amazing and exciting. Here we go!
** Our loud toddler will not not not be coming to any more meetings!
Very exciting! Also, great blog name!
ReplyDelete