Chicago Transportation Advocates Launch ‘Safe Streets for All’ Coalition

A coalition of sustainable transportation and road safety advocates in Chicago has recently formed the Safe Streets for All coalition, which hopes to bring together their collective power to influence local policy. As Sharon Hoyer reports in Streetsblog Chicago, “Together, the coalition members created a platform that envisions how better roadway design and maintenance, revised traffic laws, state-level reform, and investment in transit can create a safer and more efficient Chicago transportation system.”

The group is focused on two major issues: “Safe Streets for All and Transit that Works.” Their platform calls for creating a network of bus-only lanes to improve the city’s bus service, lowering the default speed limit (a step other cities are taking to reduce fatal crashes), and developing a sidewalk snow clearance program to maintain passable pedestrian pathways during winter, among other platform items. The group also calls for limiting where large commercial vehicles can travel, improving compensation and schedules for transit workers, making transit stations more accessible, and accurately tracking buses and trains to make travel more predictable and efficient for users.

The coalition hopes that their “hyperlocal approach to election outreach will result in a renewed commitment by city council and the mayor to prioritize the safety and experience of people biking, walking and taking transit,” according to Rebecca Resman of Chicago Family Biking, one of the participating organizations.