Double-Checking Chicago's Ambitious Bike Lane Plans

"Chicago is hustling to reach the finish line next spring on Mayor Rahm Emanuel's promise to complete 100 miles of bicycle lanes that are shielded from traffic," according to a report by Jon Hilkevitch, but there are still voices of dissent on the build out of the lanes.

"And the sprint toward the goal of building 100 miles of protected bike lanes is a mere warm-up to Emanuel's marathon plan to offer a total of 645 miles of regular and protected bikeways by 2020, when a bike lane would be within a half-mile of every city residence, according to the mayor's office." As for the cost of this rapid progress: "The city spent about $2.7 million last year designing and building bike lanes, at a cost averaging $67,000 per mile."

But here's the but: "But some of the city's most avid bicyclists are questioning the selection process that goes into the creation of the network consisting of neighborhood bike routes on residential streets, crosstown routes that use collector and arterial roads, and spoke routes that connect all areas of the city to downtown."