Inspired by European biking models, the "Bike 2015 Plan" envisions a city flooded with bicycle commuters using a well-developed infrastructure within 10 years.
"Chicago is set to unveil new plans for becoming a bicyclist's haven. And this time, it means business.
The new Bike 2015 Plan wastes little time on breezy rides in the park. Instead, the city's Department of Transportation is bent on getting people to bike to work, to school, to stores and to mass transit stops, cobbling together a 500-mile network of designated routes.
Understanding that bicyclists' greatest enemies--aside from sloth--are car doors, right-lane passers and other street perils, planners looked around the world for new safety ideas."
"Like its predecessor in 1992, the new strategic plan lays out the city's vision to make bicycling an integral part of Chicagoans' daily lives.
It offers few details and specifies no costs, though it does point to federal grants and private funding.
The plan does not say where the new miles of bike lanes and improvements would be located.
But, with a strong track record of delivering for cyclists, the city is thinking big: a bike route within a half-mile of every resident; a 50-mile circuit of bike trails, with some off-road paths to be announced later this year; 185 miles of new bikeways altogether."
FULL STORY: CHICAGO'S MASTER PLAN

Florida Considers Legalizing ADUs
Current state law allows — but doesn’t require — cities to permit accessory dwelling units in single-family residential neighborhoods.

Manufactured Crisis: Losing the Nation’s Largest Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing
Manufactured housing communities have long been an affordable housing option for millions of people living in the U.S., but that affordability is disappearing rapidly. How did we get here?

HUD Announces Plan to Build Housing on Public Lands
The agency will identify federally owned parcels appropriate for housing development and streamline the regulatory process to lease or transfer land to housing authorities and nonprofit developers.

EPA Terminates $116 Million in Grants for Reducing Emissions from Construction Materials
C-MORE grants were earmarked for industry trade groups and universities.

BART Closes $35 Million Deficit
Cost control and revenue generation measures prevented service cuts.

The New Parisian Hearse is a Bicycle
Sleek, silent, and sustainable, a green trip to the graveyard has hit the streets of the French capital.
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