Mindful Metropolis June 2010 : Page 24
LEAVE yOUR CAR AT hOmE Navigating Chicago on two feet, two pedals or by CTA By jaCoB wheeler T he French have a word for “a person who walks the city in order to experi- ence it”—a fl aneur. Th e wordsmith Charles Baudelaire wrote: “Th e crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fi shes. His passion and profession are to become one fl esh with the crowd…in the middle of the multitude, amid the ebb and fl ow of movement…” For Baudelaire, 19th century Paris was a city to be experienced on foot, which allowed one to smell the aroma of pastry and cof- fee shops, and interact with the pigeons and booksellers along the Seine River. Confi ning one’s self to an enclosed box—a carriage in his day, an automobile in ours—would de- prive the senses of the best a city has to off er: the smells, the sounds, the thrill of the crowd. Today in American cities, a new urban- ism movement is reviving the fl aneur, partly to ease automobile congestion and partly to enhance the visceral experience of being “downtown.” Parks and gardens have re- placed the last century’s industrial yards and warehouses, and sidewalks and bike paths are once again considered integral to creat- ing livable cities. Here in Chicago, the city’s privatization of parking meters has made driving downtown even more diffi cult, and expensive, than it once was. If you use the car to visit Millen- nium Park, the theatre district, or dine in the Loop, you’ll almost certainly waste valuable time stuck in traffi c—all while pedestrians ef- fortlessly walk by, an “El” train overhead rum- bles toward its next stop, or a biker passes you with one pump of their legs. If you hadn’t chosen this outdated mode of transportation, you lament, you’d already be at your destina- tion, perhaps enjoying a glass of Merlot. Th e privatized parking meters (to help pay off the city’s budget defi cit) have proven politically unpopular in Chicago, but ac- cording to the Active Transportation Alli- ance (ActiveTrans.org), the dilemma off ers a silver lining. More expensive parking down- town, and meters that force drivers to move their cars more often, encourage alternative modes of transportation—namely biking, walking and public transit. “Th e truth is that the price of parking has been subsidized by the city,” says Margo O’Hara, Director of Communications at Ac- tive Trans. “You’re not paying the true value on the street. So increasing prices is not necessarily bad, as long as it refl ects market value, supply and demand.” Active Trans, which dropped the name “Chicago Bicycle Federation” two and a half years ago to include its two new pillars—ad- vocacy for pedestrians and public transporta- tion—is perhaps best known in Chicago for two events: the annual Bike the Drive event (BiketheDrive.org, sponsored by MB Finan- cial Bank) held on May 30, when as many as 20,000 bikers pedaled down Lake Shore Drive between 5:30 and 9:30am, while the highway is closed to automobile traffi c, and Bike to Work Week, to be held this year June 12-18. During Bike to Work Week, Active Trans will build 25 temporary commuter sta- tions—at popular bike routes such as the Lakefront Trail, Milwaukee Ave., Clark St., the University of Illinois-Chicago and in Pilsen, not to mention Metra commuter stations in both the city and suburbs—and distribute coff ee and Active Trans t-shirts in order to promote urban biking and increase the organization’s membership. Active Trans is also pushing workplaces to encour- age their employees to bike to work. Last year, 250 offi ces signed up, and the organi- zation’s goal this year is 350. A membership with Active Trans includes discounts at Chicago-area bike shops, a subscription to the organization’s monthly newsletter ModeShift, discounts for Bike the Drive and other events, access to bike trailer rentals and Active Trans’ handy, seven- county Chicagoland bicycle map. biking becomes mainstream Margo O’Hara admits that one of the big- gest hurdles to convincing people to bike to work is that doing so would confl ict with their morning routine, which often includes listening to the radio through the car stereo and a coff ee in the cup holder. Th us, Active Trans encourages a step-by-step process for some: perhaps biking to the park on Satur- day with the kids is a more realistic goal than biking to work on a busy Monday. Admittedly, there are times when biking won’t cut it, and we need the services of an automobile. Chicago is lucky to have a local, nonprofi t car-sharing company—I-Go Car Sharing (IGoCars.org), which is affi liated with the Center for Neighborhood Technol- 24 June 2010
Leave Your Car At Home
Jacob Wheeler
The French have a word for “a person who walks the city in order to experience it”—a flaneur. The wordsmith Charles Baudelaire wrote: “The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and profession are to become one flesh with the crowd…in the middle of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement…”
For Baudelaire, 19th century Paris was a city to be experienced on foot, which allowed one to smell the aroma of pastry and coffee shops, and interact with the pigeons and booksellers along the Seine River. Confining one’s self to an enclosed box—a carriage in his day, an automobile in ours—would deprive the senses of the best a city has to offer: the smells, the sounds, the thrill of the crowd.
Today in American cities, a new urbanism movement is reviving the flaneur, partly to ease automobile congestion and partly to enhance the visceral experience of being “downtown.” Parks and gardens have replaced the last century’s industrial yards and warehouses, and sidewalks and bike paths are once again considered integral to creating livable cities.
Here in Chicago, the city’s privatization of parking meters has made driving downtown even more difficult, and expensive, than it once was. If you use the car to visit Millennium Park, the theatre district, or dine in the Loop, you’ll almost certainly waste valuable time stuck in traffic—all while pedestrians effortlessly walk by, an “El” train overhead rumbles toward its next stop, or a biker passes you with one pump of their legs. If you hadn’t chosen this outdated mode of transportation, you lament, you’d already be at your destination, perhaps enjoying a glass of Merlot.
The privatized parking meters (to help pay off the city’s budget deficit) have proven politically unpopular in Chicago, but according to the Active Transportation Alliance (ActiveTrans.org), the dilemma offers a silver lining. More expensive parking downtown, and meters that force drivers to move their cars more often, encourage alternative modes of transportation—namely biking, walking and public transit.
“The truth is that the price of parking has been subsidized by the city,” says Margo O’Hara, Director of Communications at Active Trans. “You’re not paying the true value on the street. So increasing prices is not necessarily bad, as long as it reflects market value, supply and demand.”
Active Trans, which dropped the name “Chicago Bicycle Federation” two and a half years ago to include its two new pillars—advocacy for pedestrians and public transportation—is perhaps best known in Chicago for two events: the annual Bike the Drive event (BiketheDrive.org, sponsored by MB Financial Bank) held on May 30, when as many as 20,000 bikers pedaled down Lake Shore Drive between 5:30 and 9:30am, while the highway is closed to automobile traffic, and Bike to Work Week, to be held this year June 12-18.
During Bike to Work Week, Active Trans will build 25 temporary commuter stations—at popular bike routes such as the Lakefront Trail, Milwaukee Ave., Clark St., the University of Illinois-Chicago and in Pilsen, not to mention Metra commuter stations in both the city and suburbs—and distribute coffee and Active Trans t-shirts in order to promote urban biking and increase the organization’s membership. Active Trans is also pushing workplaces to encourage their employees to bike to work. Last year, 250 offices signed up, and the organization’s goal this year is 350.
A membership with Active Trans includes discounts at Chicago-area bike shops, a subscription to the organization’s monthly newsletter ModeShift, discounts for Bike the Drive and other events, access to bike trailer rentals and Active Trans’ handy, seven-county Chicagoland bicycle map.
Biking becomes mainstream
Margo O’Hara admits that one of the biggest hurdles to convincing people to bike to work is that doing so would conflict with their morning routine, which often includes listening to the radio through the car stereo and a coffee in the cup holder. Thus, Active Trans encourages a step-by-step process for some: perhaps biking to the park on Saturday with the kids is a more realistic goal than biking to work on a busy Monday.
Admittedly, there are times when biking won’t cut it, and we need the services of an automobile. Chicago is lucky to have a local, nonprofit car-sharing company—I-Go Car Sharing (IGoCars.org), which is affiliated with the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Wicker Park (CNT.com)—and a national company Zipcar (ZipCar.com).
Despite the stereotype of militant, reckless bikers, abundant on the city’s north and near-northwest sides, O’Hara says that biking is more commonplace among all Chicagoans, and in other U.S. cities too.
“You don’t have to be a crazy, spandex-wearing, militant hipster on a fixed-gear bike. Biking is becoming mainstream,” she says. “People are biking to work for different reasons. For some, it’s the quickest way. For some it’s economical. And for others it’s about their health.”
Chicago celebrities have joined the biking ranks too. Mayor Richard Daley has been known to pedal around his home neighborhood of Bridgeport; Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster sometimes bikes to Wrigley Field, which offers a free bike valet service on Clark St., just north of the ballpark. (I checked my Redline Cyclocross there before catching a game in mid-May, and saw new Cubs owner Tom Ricketts arriving together with several dozen bikers.)
Several books about biking in Chicago have hit the scene in recent months. Jason Rothstein’s Carless in Chicago: Live and Thrive in Chicago Without Owning a Car (Lake Claremont Press, 2010) is a user-friendly guide to realizing the financial benefits and the health benefits of biking, walking or taking the CTA. Carless in Chicago offers helpful maps and useful everyday information for exploring the Windy City in a sustainable manner. And Chicago two-wheeled enthusiast John Greenfield’s book Bars Across America: Drinking and Biking from Coast to Coast, is a light-hearted, inspiring read.
Greg Borzo, author of The Chicago “L” and local editor of the North America-wide Momentum magazine, writes about Carless in Chicago: “Rothstein coolly lays out some real benefits of selling your car: more cash and better health; more free time and less stress; a cleaner environment and a more human-scale city. The sound and sensible points do not call for sacrifice or suffering, and are convincing, especially considering that they come from a self-confessed car-lover. This book will change the way you think about cars. It might even change your life.”
Great books about biking in Chicago help the movement, and so does the local chapter of Critical Mass (ChicagoCriticalMass.org). Bikers meet at Daley Plaza at 5:30pm on the last Friday of every month and travel in a pack through neighborhoods. O’Hara says that Critical Mass provides safety in numbers. More people biking in the city increases the chance that the automobile driver next to you is a cyclist, or knows a cyclist.
Metra commuter trains began allowing bikes within the last decade, though not during peak rush hours and not during certain events such as the annual Taste of Chicago. As part of a pilot project this year, the Metra will allow as many as five bikes per train car, and eliminating those blackout days could be the next step. In addition, Chicago busses are equipped to carry two bikes each, on their front bumper, for no extra cost.
Recent political events such as the economic recession, the energy crisis, America’s obesity epidemic and the threats of peak oil and global climate change have boosted Active Trans’ agendas because they all point to the same solution—leaving your car at home. O’Hara says that these problems in the daily news grant the organization legitimacy by giving it something to latch onto.
This summer Active Trans will also launch a Crash Support Effort, including a telephone hotline available to bikers and pedestrians who have suffered an accident—that is, once they’ve already called 911 to deal with an eminent emergency. The Crash Support Effort will respond to callers within 24 hours, help them through insurance issues and outline the next steps for anyone injured. The organization also offers a crash support group for traumatized victims who might be afraid to bike again in the city and who might be frightened by the sound of a car approaching from behind.
Take back our streets
But when asked for her proudest moment at Active Trans, O’Hara bypassed Bike the Drive and Bike to Work Week, and instead named House Bill 43, which just passed the Illinois Senate and, once signed, will force drivers to come to complete stops at crosswalks. O’Hara says that Active Trans mobilized key state senators in DuPage County to push this legislation. Twelve other states already have a crosswalk law, and Illinois would become the second in the Midwest to do so, following Minnesota.
The House Bill 43 effort reflects one of Active Trans’ newer pillars: pedestrian safety. The organization also organized Open Streets events in 2008 and 2009 that temporarily closed an eight-mile stretch of boulevards from Logan Square on the northwest side to Little Village on the southwest side. Open Streets reclaimed public spaces for people to bike, walk, dance, play and be physically active. The $250,000 price tag prohibited Active Trans from holding another Open Streets this year, though certain suburban communities, such as Oak Forest, are holding their own such events.
O’Hara says that progressive U.S. metropolises such as New York, San Francisco and Portland fund Open Streets-type events with city money, and they do so more frequently. Not so in Chicago, and that may be the reason why the Windy City recently fell from the top spot in Bicycling Magazine’s best U.S. cities for biking.
Active Trans is also using community-activism methods to reach out to neighborhoods and help them reclaim public spaces. The organization’s Better Blocks campaign involves going to block clubs and block parties and asking residents what prevents them from biking or walking more often, and what makes them feel unsafe in their own neighborhood.
According to O’Hara, sometimes the simplest things stop people from being active outdoors: a broken sidewalk, or a street without a speed bump. At Active Trans’ urging, residents of Albany Ave., in Logan Square, between Fullerton and Kedzie, are lobbying Alderman Rey Colon from the 35th Ward to put in speed bumps.
“Cars aren’t the only ones using those streets,” summarizes O’Hara. “What about grandmothers who are too old to drive, or kids who are too young to drive? They deserve the streets too.”
Jacob Wheeler is a freelance journalist, editor and publisher who hails from the cobblestone streets of Copenhagen and the forests of northwest-lower Michigan, where he publishes the Glen Arbor Sun (glenarborsun.com).
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