Protected Bike Lane Creates Controversy on Chicago's Kinzie Street

"Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly introduced a measure Wednesday to try to force the city's transportation commissioner to pull a protected bike lane off Kinzie Street," reports John Byrne.

"According to Reilly, community-approved development plans for buildings going up on Wolf Point included an agreement that the bike lane would be moved off Kinzie Street and onto nearby Grand Avenue because the heavy auto traffic trying to get into the buildings from Kinzie would be incompatible with the bike lane."

Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld is reportedly attempting to user her commissioner's authority to ignore the directive of the development plans, but the ordinance is designed to circumvent that authority.

In a separate article, Fran Spielman reports on more the political back and forth driving the controversy.