With car parking banned from two blocks of Chicago's Milwaukee Avenue on weekend nights, the city could take the opportunity to permanently adapt the space for other uses.
After complaints from neighbors about illegal street drinking and after-hours noise on a popular strip of Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood, the city banned parking on the 1400 and 1500 blocks of Milwaukee Avenue on weekend nights. But now, as John Greenfield reports, some business owners say "not only do empty parking lanes make the corridor look more desolate, they also encourage motorists to speed in the travel lanes, or even drive in the parking lanes, which is particularly dangerous for people cycling in the dashed bike lanes on Milwaukee."
Greenfield argues that the city should do more to support the retrofitting of curbside parking into outdoor seating and dining areas, and that these efforts should include shoring up bus service in popular commercial areas and installing protected bike lanes in former parking lanes.
While some local business owners expressed concern about losing parking when a protected bike lane was first proposed in 2017, Greenfield writes that "it sounds like removing all of the car parking on Milwaukee during prime bar-going hours hasn’t actually been devastating to local businesses, but instead has been a minor inconvenience. That’s evidence that converting only half of the spaces for protected lanes at all times wouldn’t cause major problems either, but would instead make it safer and easier for customers to bike to their establishments."
FULL STORY: Banning parking as a public safety strategy? Use the space for walking, biking, or dining
Bike Lanes Are Good for Business. Why Don’t Business Owners Believe It?
Proposed bike lanes often come up against opposition from local merchants who believe losing street parking will hurt their business, but research repeatedly shows the opposite effect.
Do Bike Lanes Actually Cause Business Loss?
The often unsubstantiated assumption that loss of street parking due to bike lane installations leads to lost business can have a chilling effect on bike infrastructure.
Austin Outlaws Blocking Bike Lanes
Drivers who park in bike lanes will receive citations of up to $300.
The state-sanctioned urbicide of Austin
People don’t kill cities. Freeways do.
US to reduce Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico
A new Colorado Treaty amendment reduces Mexico’s Colorado River water allocation by 250,000 acre feet.
New Jersey’s second-largest city bans standalone data centers
Jersey City will continue to allow co-location facilities, such as those meant for research institutions that store their own data.
Amtrak not solely to blame for New Jersey commuter rail's unreliability, report finds
A new study from the Garden State Initiative found that NJ Transit’s budget grew 20% across a 4 year period, but reliability declined significantly over the same period.
EPA erases limits on planet-warming pollution from power plants
Under Monday’s plan, power plants would still have some limits on how much mercury, arsenic and other contaminants they can emit.
Phoenix announces new on-demand transit service, more frequent RAPID buses
Both new services will launch in October, and are part of Phoenix's Project Effective Access Solutions for Easing Congestion.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association