ChiWhoBike #5
I ride my bike every day and one of the best experiences I have had living in Pullman and biking in that neighborhood is my neighbors. I get on my bike and within half a block I’m waving at people, they are waving at me, someone’s stopping me to ask me how I’m doing, you can’t go more than a block without someone stopping you and asking you a question or checking up on you.
We do our Southside monthly ride and during those we have a security team that actually rides in front of us, that’s able to block off the streets. If we had safer bike lanes, we wouldn’t have to have a whole security team come out, block the street for us to safely cross because the bike lane doesn’t exist. Just make it more accessible, more known, and more connected.
I think when it comes to the already existing bike lanes, they really need to do a better job on the upkeep of them. The paint’s chipping off, and if a biker can’t see it, a car sure can’t see it, so it’s a matter of safety. A lot of my concerns also with the city of Chicago and the bike lanes is that you have a bike lane and it leads to nowhere, and you’re ending up in the middle of the street. And in Chicago, these drivers are reckless, you’ve got a lot of reckless drivers! So you know, when you don’t have the safety, the protection, of the bike lane, you kind of put yourself at risk.
