|
Welcome to Carless in Chicago, a companion blog and website to my book of the same name (coming soon from Lake Claremont Press). I’d like to start by talking a little bit about the purpose of this web site, and how it fits together with the book. → Continue reading Welcome to Carless in Chicago Just in time for today’s World Car Free Day, Forbes magazine culled some statistics about the top 10 “cleanest commutes” in the U.S based on three criteria: mass transit use, carpooling, and driving alone. Chicago makes the list, but not by much, sitting at #9 just above LA. (On mass transit use alone, we’re a little better, at #5, and 11.3% of using transit for our commutes.) Overall, San Francisco ranks #1. I have no illusions that Carless in Chicago alone will make a big dent in these statistics, but perhaps it will help move the needle a little. So watch out, Portland and Boston (tied for #7); we’re coming for you. (Via The Pump Handle) Via their blog, the Active Transportation Alliance (formerly the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation) reports on their first committee meeting about revising the excellent and essential Chicagoland Regional Bike Map. They are also still seeking committee participants from all over the region to take responsibility for proofing existing bike routes and providing new information. Contact Carolyn Helmke for more details.  Redesigned Metra Homepage It was remiss of me to let last week pass without posting about the newly revamped Metra web site. Beneath the considerable cosmetic update lie a couple of important new features for riders. First, anyone can now purchase passes and 10-ride cards online, without having to go through an application process. Second, Metra has introduced ‘My Metra,’ an easy way for accountholders to manage ticket purchases and track news about their preferred routes, trains, and stops. For example, if you always take the 8:07 train from Western Avenue to your job in Schaumburg, you can sign up for notifications about delays and other events that may impact your commute. Welcome changes, all. As part of World Car-Free Day, the Active Transportation Alliance partners with our local transit agencies and Caribou Coffee to sponsor Chicagoland Car Free Day on Tuesday, September 22. Take the pledge, and receive a $1 off coupon from Caribou. A few days ago, Christine Escobar over at Green Parent Chicago posted a very nice write-up of Carless in Chicago, and I’ve seen a few people click over here from there this week. For those who came hoping to buy copies, rest assured, I expect them to be available soon! Please keep checking back, or email me, and I’ll send you an announcement when the book is on shelves. For those readers who don’t know, Green Parent Chicago is a terrific resource for families (and others) interested in greener living choices in urban environments, and car-free living is only one of the topics they cover. Highly recommended. And, I should mention that GPC is also sponsoring a playdate in Seneca Park for Chicagoland Car Free Day, an event I’ll be posting about shortly. Details here.  Velib bikes in Paris. Photo by the noggin_nogged (Creative Commons) Today’s Tribune has an editorial exploring what’s happened since Mayor Daley proposed bringing a Paris-style bike sharing model to Chicago after a visit to France in late 2007. Long story short: bike sharing is more complicated than the city realized, and the Paris model hasn’t fared quite as well as predicted. Still, bike sharing remains a popular model, and one that seems to be catching on a lot of places. But I was surprised and pleased to discover a whole blog devoted to this topic, named, appropriately enough, The Bike Sharing Blog. They cover programs world wide, and have written quite a bit about the Paris model. I am unashamed of my desire to see new high speed rail links brought to the Chicago region and elsewhere. But recently, two commentators have reminded us that as exciting as HSR projects would be, they may not really represent our most pressing transit needs. Just today, John McCarron pens a Tribune Op-Ed arguing that putting stimulus dollars into what he refers to as “medium speed rail” like the El and Metra systems would benefit a lot of people a lot more quickly that many of the projects that congress is currently evaluating. Writing a little more broadly, Ben Adler of The Nation points out that most of the public transit dollars in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act go to new projects, rather than providing much needed operating support to local agencies. I think anyone who’s lived through the numerous “doomsday” scenarios of the past few years would have hard time arguing with these points. I’d speculate that we’re likely to see another stimulus bill in some shape or form in the next twelve months. If you’re inclined to do so, consider writing your representatives to let them know your priorities as a carless citizen. A couple weeks ago, I posted about Zipcar adding I-Pass to all their Chicago cars. Via their Facebook page, I see that I-Go is now on the case as well, starting with their Evanston and Oak Park cars, and soon to the entire fleet. Speaking for myself, I’m quite happy to see this development. Yesterday’s WIndy Citizen offered an extensive look at the Wilson Station on the Red Line, in honor of it’s selection as the systems “Most Crusty” station in a Red Eye reader poll. (Via Uptown Update.) Every couple of days recently I’ve run across an article about Christopher Steiner’s new book, $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better. One of the more interesting ones is a recent piece in Forbes by Steiner himself exploring the relationship between gas prices and Americans’ weight, suggesting that a $1 rise in price of gas translates into a 10% dip in obesity, and an $11 billion annual annual savings in health care costs. Food for thought, as they say… Courtesy of today’s Getting Around column in the tribune, two updates of interest to CTA riders: The CTA has abandoned plans to convert more rail cars to the “Maxi” configuration with fewer seats and more room for standing passengers. (However, existing Maxi cars, which I believe all remain on the Brown Line, will not get converted back.) The CTA also confirms the limbo status of the Washington Red Line station and transfer tunnel to the Blue Line, explaining that it wouldn’t be cost-effective to reopen the station before the final status of the Block 37 superstation is known. The Sun Times published a nifty interactive graphic on its web site this week that gives approximate costs to the various kinds of regular capital expenditures made by the CTA. (I can’t quite determine what article it relates to, but this gives me an excuse to link to the Sun Times’ transportation blog, The Ride, added to the blogroll today.  Chicago Bus Tracker Gadget After writing about bus tracking goodness on the iPhone a couple weeks ago, I’ve been looking for other tools that access CTA’s bus data. It turns out that Kevin Zolkiewicz, the guy behind the excellent ChicagoBus.org created a bus tracking widget for MacOS X, and then another local developer, Christopher Manning converted that widget into a Windows Vista Gadget.(Manning also has an interesting CTA el visualizer on his web site, but doesn’t offer much information about what it demonstrates.) I haven’t had the chance to try the Windows Gadget yet, but one thing that impresses me about the Mac Widget: It updates almost instantly, making it perfect for holding any route/stops you check on a regular basis. Nicely done.  Gold Line Proposal It’s not really a new story, but today’s Tribune has a nice write up about the grassroots “Gold Line” proposal to bring better mass transit to parts of the city’s South Side. Much like the earlier “Gray Line” proposal (second item in link), a key component to the plan involves expanding service on the main branch of the Metra Electric Line to several trains per hour and providing some mechanism for easy fare pass-through between it and the CTA. As someone who grew up in Hyde Park, I find a lot of appeal in the basic idea, although the devil is in the details. Historically, Metra and CTA do not have a great track record of working together, and my understanding is that even the current Metra Electric service is underused, making it difficult to justify expansion. As the article points out, RTA is working on a unified fare card for CTA, Metra, and Pace, which might in and of itself address some of the issues that the Gold Line proposal identifies. Again, these aren’t exactly new ideas. Chicago Weekly did a really nice job covering some of these issues last November in a longer piece that also details other proposals for improving South Side service such as extending the Red Line to 130th Street, and the Orange Line to Ford City Mall. |
||
|
Copyright © 2010 Jason Rothstein - All Rights Reserved |
||
