The protected bike lane installed this year on a section of Broadway in Uptown was named one of the year's ten best new bike lanes in the United States by advocacy group People for Bikes.
The celebrated 1.2 miles of bike lanes on Broadway includes a stretch from Foster Avenue to Wilson Avenue that is protected with a "buffer" of paint lines separating the bike and car lanes, and a section from Wilson Avenue to Montrose Avenue that is also protected by white posts called bollards, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation data.
City crews installed 30.75 miles of buffer-protected bike lanes and 3.25 miles of barrier-protected ones around the city this year, according to department data. Both styles are considered protected bike lanes by the city.
People for Bikes, is an advocacy organization sponsored by bicycle suppliers, manufacturers and retailers including Giant Bicycle, Inc., the Trek Bicycle Corporation and Specialized Bicycle Components. In the list of top bike lanes of the year, People for Bikes organizers noted the Broadway lanes run in both directions on opposite sides of the street in a busy commercial area, making it easier for cyclists to get where they need to go but having more of an affect on how cars use the road than a two-way lane on one side of the street would have.
The majority of Chicago's bike lanes are unprotected, meaning they run along the curb on one side of the street and are marked by a single, white line, a bike symbol and/or some white line arrows painted on the ground. The lanes also point cyclists to ride in the same direction as vehicle traffic.
"People on bikes need to get access to resources just like anyone else, and doing projects on commercial streets is often more intense," said Zach Vanderkooy, a project manager with People for Bikes. "A lot of cities tend to choose a two-way on one side of the street design, not necessarily because it's a better design, but because it's politically easier, and we really like how on Broadway it chose a superior design, even though it was probably a little more difficult to pull off."
Other bike lanes on the top ten list were in other cities, such as Seattle and San Francisco.
Ald. James Cappleman, (46th) whose ward includes the Broadway bike lanes, said constituents have called for more bike lanes in recent years and he supported the creation of the Broadway lane because he assumed it would be well-used.
"Close to half of our ward residents do not own cars. There's a lot of avid cyclists in this area," Cappleman said. "I am a huge fan of best practices, and best practice show that when you have bike lanes, people tend to shop more in the area."
Next up for the ward, Cappleman said, will likely be a neighborhood greenway running on Leland Avenue between Clark Street and Lake Shore Drive. Neighborhood greenways consist of side streets where a green-painted bike lane signals bikes have the right-of-way.
"From Western Avenue all the way to the lake, we want to make it easier for people to ride their bikes," he said.
Here are the bike lanes in the other cities that made the Top 10 list:
- Polk Street in San Francisco
- Seattle got two mentions for bike lanes on 2nd Avenue as well as Broadway
- Riverside Drive in Memphis, Tennessee
- Rosemead Boulevard in Temple City, California
- Furness Drive in Austin, Texas
- SW Multnomah Boulevard in Portland, Oregon
- Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh
- King Street, Honolulu