27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett speaks at a community meeting at Intuit Art Gallery to discuss proposed protected bike lanes along Milwaukee Ave. Tuesday evening. Photo credit: Alisa Hauser/DNA Info Chicago.
The city’s push for more protected bike lanes seems to be getting a little push back.
At a community meeting in the River West neighborhood Tuesday evening, residents, business owners and bike riders joined city officials to discuss the proposed Milwaukee Avenue protected bike lanes between Kinzie St. and Elston Ave.
According to DNA Info Chicago, not everyone at the meeting was overjoyed about the idea. In fact, it got a bit heated at times according to the story.
Perhaps they were surprised by what seems to be a more aggressive plan to remove parking spots that what’s been floated up until now. Initial reports had for very few parking spots to be removed. The drawings presented Tuesday evening indicated 50% of the parking along that nearly one mile strip of Milwaukee would be gobbled up. Some, but not all of those spots are metered which could present a financial impact on the city due to the terms of the parking meter lease deal.
Here’s how DNA Info’s Alisa Hauser laid it out for readers.
The near one-mile stretch of Milwaukee Avenue — a busy stretch of road that sees 500 cyclists per hour on average — will lose 50 percent of its on-street parking, according to David Smith, a planner who was contracted by the city to manage CDOT’s Bikeways project. The project seeks to build 100 miles of protected bike lanes by 2015.
Smith said 55 to 60 spaces will be eliminated while 50 to 55 new spaces could be potentially found on side streets off of Milwaukee Avenue.
Options to find new parking included changing a side street from two-way to one-way for the propose of creating 10 new parking spots.
On Erie Street between Milwaukee and Halsted, Smith said permit parking is “underutilized” and they could “modify residential permit parking to increase access to 25 spots.”
“Our goal is to lose almost no parking for cars,” Smith said.
According to DNA Info, many business owners, residents and drivers complained about the plan claiming parking is already scarce at points along the proposed route.
Streetsblog Chicago writer John Greenfield was also at the meeting, but he described people critical of the plan as grousing drivers.
Here’s DNA Info Chicago’s full report, “Residents Not Happy with Plan to Ditch Parking for Protected Bike Lanes.”
But also read Greenfield’s report which published more of the technical details and graphic illustrations of the proposed plan.
Here’s Streetsblog Chicago’s version, “CDOT Unveils Bold Vision for Milwaukee Bike Lanes; Drivers Grouse.”
