thoughts on Safe Routes to School and life skills

I've referred to Safe Routes to School programs a few times in previous blog posts. A successful program that encourages more families to let their kids walk or bike to school means less traffic, less stress for kids and school neighbors, healthy transportation and exercise for kids.

I have friends who have been involved in organizing these programs at schools in various neighborhoods over the years. Talking with them about their efforts made me think of my own experiences walking to school as a kid.

Compared to riding in a car, it increased my awareness of surroundings, helped me learn street smarts and navigation, and develop decision making skills. Walking or biking or using public transit is about much more than transportation. These are building blocks for many important life skills.

If kids are driven everywhere in the name of "safety" and they never have this kind of learning opportunity, are they as well prepared as they could be for high school, college and life after school?  How safe are they later on when they are trying to function independently, beyond the cocoon their parents have created for them?

Several years ago, I met students who were juniors and seniors in high school who were attempting for the first time to navigate independently outside their neighborhoods and figure out how to get where they were going on public transit. They got lost and were an hour late for the workshop they were attending. Examples like this are all too common now.

Investing in ways to make our streets safer for pedestrians and bikes is an investment in quality of life in our community - for the present and the future.

getting up to speed

Getting up to speed isn’t always about going as fast as possible. Sometimes it’s good to do a refresher on rules of the road. Laws change over time, so what we learned years ago isn’t necessarily the same as current laws. Going back and reviewing from time to time may also help us break bad habits.

I see evidence every day that doing this would be relevant for many drivers. A few days ago I was riding my bike on Longwood Dr. A driver zoomed up from behind me, shrieking “Get out the street! Get out the street!” I’ve heard clueless things said by lots of drivers like her who seem unaware of state laws giving cyclists the same rights as drivers on the vast majority of streets.

Too many seem equally unaware of the Chicago law requiring cyclists 12 and older to be on the street, not on the sidewalk, unless it's a location where the sidewalk is designated as a trail. This is for pedestrian safety. Grandma will thank you. Laws on this subject vary by municipality. Many suburbs allow riding on the sidewalk except in business districts or other areas where signage prohibits sidewalk riding.

If you’re driving, there are a few important bike-related laws you should know. Illinois and most other states have a 3 foot passing law, requiring you to move far enough to the left of a cyclist to leave 3 feet or more between your vehicle and the bicycle when passing.

When you are parked, opening your door into traffic make cause a serious injury or fatality for a passing cyclist. It's happened to me. I turned a corner and encountered an illegally parked car at the crosswalk. The driver flung his door open and knocked me sideways, flying off the bike into evening rush hour traffic onto my tailbone. The woman driving behind me hit the brakes and put on her flashers, blocking cars behind her from hitting me. Some people aren’t as lucky when they get doored.

This is why there is a state law requiring drivers to look before opening their doors and wait until the lane is clear before doing so if there is approaching traffic. Looking before opening your door can help to prevent tragedies like this one in Pilsen last week.

      (625 ILCS 5/11-1407) (from Ch. 95 1/2, par. 11-1407) Sec. 11-1407. Opening and closing vehicle doors. No person shall open the door of a vehicle on the side available to moving traffic unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so, and can be done without interfering with the movement of other traffic, nor shall any person leave a door open on the side of a vehicle available to moving traffic for a period of time longer than necessary to load or unload passengers.

A new bill was just passed adding the Dutch reach technique to Rules of the Road and adding bike safety questions to the state driver’s license exam.



If you see someone on a bike using hand signals and there hasn't been any unfriendly exchange to provoke hostile gestures, pay attention. They're probably trying to tell you that they're stopping or turning.

If you're the one who's going to turn and there are no cars in sight, it's still a good idea to use your turn signals if there's a pedestrian or cyclist who may be affected by your turning movement. They need to know if you're turning. That critical bit of information may save that person's life or prevent serious injuries.



Illinois and most states have laws requiring drivers to stop or yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. A while back I wrote about an incident I witnessed on 99th St. where a driver  was trying to intimidate a group of moms and kids who were crossing the street in front of All Day Montessori.

A driver who uses their vehicle to threaten a vulnerable road user (pedestrian or cyclist) or deliberately or recklessly hits and injures them may be charged with vehicular assault.

Driving is a privilege, not a right. To deserve that privilege, it’s our individual responsibility as drivers to stay up to date on current laws. Anyone who choses to be ignorant of laws threatens the safety of others and should not be driving a motor vehicle.

bike parking that actually works (and some that doesn't)

If you're not familiar with Bikeyface, she's a Boston area cartoonist who writes and draws about bike-related issues.  I've seen many situations where a business or government entity installed bike racks with good intentions, but the racks ended up being fairly useless due to poor placement, poor quality racks, or both.  Bikeyface covered it rather well in this blog post.

If you own a business or are part of an organization considering bike rack installations, this set of guidelines is one of the better resources for getting it right, in choice of bike rack design and how to place racks so they're most effective.  Please review which rack styles work well and which are useless.

Bike rack needs have changed over the years. For commuting or transportation riding, most people ride mountain bikes or other utilitarian or comfort bikes, which have wider handlebars than the road bikes that used to be the norm. This means that bike parking slots need to be wider than in the past. Also, most people carry U-locks, which are much more secure than cable locks, but not flexible.

When the new public library opened at 95th and Damen, I was happy to see a 10-bike rack by the front door (photos below), but less than thrilled when I actually tried to use it.  This rack is a good, secure design. Unfortunately the contractor who installed it was apparently clueless about actual use of such a rack and standards for installation.

These are designed for bikes to be positioned perpendicular to the rack, and for a lock to go around wheel, rack and part of the frame. Most adult bikes have 26" or larger wheels. Some bikes with 26" wheels barely fit here. Bikes with 27" or 700c wheels are difficult or impossible to secure here with most U-locks.

For secure locking, the rack should be far enough from a wall or other barrier to allow the back of the bike wheel to be even with the rack or just beyond it. This rack should be at least 6" further from the wall. It's set in concrete, so this problem is unlikely to get fixed anytime soon.

Public library rack installed too close to wall for secure locking for most wheel sizes

This rack position would be fine if most folks carried chains for locking, but most U-locks aren't large enough to work for this situation. People who care about locking their bikes securely often resort to Plan B, turning the bike parallel to the rack, blocking 4 or more spaces. This is fine if only 2 or 3 individuals want to use the rack. Most people approaching by bike never see the rack in the corner of the parking lot behind the fence, and end up locking to the bench or fence instead.

People who want to lock securely do this, blocking 4 or more spaces,
so rack is only usable for 2 or 3 bikes.

The folks at Walgreens get a few points for effort but an F for execution, both at 95th and Ashland and 103rd and Western. This type of rack is called a "wheelbender" because that's what can happen if your bike gets knocked over while locked to one of these racks. With a U-lock, only one wheel can be locked to the rack - not secure at all. With a long chain, it might be possible to lock securely, but few people carry those because they're heavy. Bikes locked here block most of the sidewalk.

It's difficult to lock up to this rack at all. It was nearly impossible even to
lock the U-lock, and anyone could undo the quick release on the front wheel
to easily steal the rest of the bike. It's a truly useless rack.

Racks in visible locations are the best. No one uses the rack at the 103rd St. Metra station because it is nearly invisible from most angles of view, making it a vulnerable location for theft. Anyone who rides a bike to that station locks up at one of the racks around the corner on 103rd St.

Mostly invisible rack at 103rd St. Metra station

Good bike parking can be a real asset to a small business, allowing it to serve more customers with less car parking. It encourages employees to ride to work. At a train station, it can reduce the number of people driving to the station, reducing traffic congestion as well as air and noise pollution.

These 2 bikes take up only 2 spaces in front of Ellie's, leaving the rest of the rack free.

The rack above is a better choice than the narrower style of wave racks at 103rd St. and 99th St. Metra stations.

Bike racks at County Fair are used by customers and employees

There's more discussion on this topic on the Chainlink.  If you're interested in bike-related issues, the Chainlink is an excellent resource.

separate but unequal

Cheryle Jackson of the Chicago Urban League had a good op-ed piece in the Trib this week. I've heard the same stories from too many teachers in inner city schools of school budgets that do not even cover basic supplies, leaving the teachers themselves to buy chalk, paper, and other items that we take for granted in better funded schools. Some schools do not have adequate books. The books may be outdated or simply worn out from years of use. Students may be working by photocopied handouts, sometimes paid for by their teachers, because that's all there is.

This isn't an "us vs. them" situation. Lack of educational opportunity affects ALL of us.

Of course, the elephant in this particular room is parent participation. In neighborhoods where schools are severely underfunded, there are many other issues, beginning in students' homes. Parents may lack time because they're working 2 or 3 jobs to support their kids. They may have done poorly in school themselves and may not know how to help their children learn well. Kids may be living with grandparents or in foster homes.

I hope that the Urban League's next step will be pushing for more mentoring programs to help kids build the skills they need to learn well in school. Without that, increased funding is unlikely to solve the problem.