Mayor Rahm Emanuel likes to brag that Chicago is one of the leading cities for protected bike lanes, with 22 miles installed to date. That figure helped us garner Bicycling magazine’s award for America’s best biking city last September.
CDOT originally installed the Marshall lanes in November 2012. Previously Marshall had wide travel lanes plus parking on both sides of the street in most sections.
But in defense of the lanes, Hamilton noted that the “road diet” (as narrowing or removing travel lanes is called) had dramatically reduced speeding on Marshall. Before the protected lanes went in, 59 percent of drivers were exceeding the 30 mph speed limit on the stretch, with 12.5 percent doing over 40 mph-a speed at which pedestrian crashes are almost always fatal. Afterward, only 27 percent of drivers were speeding, with a mere 1 percent breaking 40.
Korn says he and one other bike commuter were the only attendees to voice support for the bike lanes, and he didn’t hear much more about the issue until CDOT removed the protected bike lanes in late 2016.
Neighbors, she says, are pleased with the new layout.
Urban planning grad student and Pilsen resident Paolo Cisneros, who frequently used the Marshall protected lanes to bike commute last summer, was likewise bummed about the downgrade.
