Chicago

What a day.

• Breakfast.
• Meetings.
• Brown bag lunch
• Bikes are front page news
• Cycling.
• Book Shop
• Mist.
• Under the el
• Bike shop
• 6 way junctions
• multiple suburbs
• Lots of familiar names of streets and neighbourhoods
• Burgers
• Photo calls
• Meetings
• Buildings
• Riding in Rapha
• Pretty girls
• Lads jogging topless, everywhere
• Architectural meets
• Models
• Postcards
• Beer
• Transport
• Commissioners
• Pizza
• Discussion
• More mist
• More riding
• Frustratingly poor internet in the hotel.

Really love the city, amazing open space, stunning skyline. Changable weather.  Super friendly people.  Some really quite aggressive people.  Endless streets to explore.  Sure there's too many cars and some weird un-utilised spaces.  But on a first impression I don't think I've felt this good about a city in 24 hours since Melbourne.  And that's really saying something for me!




In the morning we headed up to the Active Transportation Alliance.  Met with David Taxman who interviewed us for a piece for the ATA blog.  He also has his own seperate blog: Eyes of the planner which has insights whioch could proove valuable once I have time to actually read anything.

We then had a 'Brown bag lunch' with the ATA.  Some interesting insights and notes.
LArge inverstments in Chicago cycling

Was also very nice to see cycling issues on the front page of the Chicago Tribune while at the reception there.





I spent the afternoon running some errands around Northern Chicago.  Buying Maps and tubes.  My experience was generally pretty good. Was armed with a map.  At first I underestimated the size of the city and distance.  Some road surfaces leave a lot to be desired, but I guess local knowledge will help with that, as well as finding some of the quieter, leafier routes.




Traffic signal changes can be painfully slow sometimes, but this is the US.  The 2 biggest problems that I encountered was the massive 6 way junctions where diagonal streets intersect the grid, really quite intimidating if you're trying to cut across traffic on a bike.  Then the problem in the city that on street parking is privatised.  Adds a whole new level of stakeholder management if you're trying to get infrastructure put in such as separated bike paths.




After lunch I headed back to meet the gang for photo shoots and meets with city peeps.  Some time spent by the cloud gate was very nice, getting attention from other visitors and locals.  It surely is a strange sight to see 12 adults dressed in stripey socks and long shorts on bikes.  Quiter surreal in fact to be a part of it.




We were shown one of the first 'Divvy bikes' which are the Chicago bike share scheme due to be rolled out in the next few weeks.  From this meet we went to the Chicago Architecture Foundation.  Brilliant building with full model of the city.  Similar to the display at the Building Centre in store street, would be great to have both models next to each other one day.




We were then met by my new good mate Gabe Klein, the commissioner for transport for Chicago.  He is very enthusiastic about things that they have planned for the city in terms of active transportation and "Balancing the streets" it also all makes more sense in the wider context of re-urbanisation, trying to densify the city, attract more creative millennial generation workers into the city.  And keeping hold of people as they start families instead of continuing the trend of the flight to the suburbs, of which we were informed Chicago has suffered considerably in the past.  Gabe mentioned this article in the Atlantic which is an interesting POV.

As this blog has become more of a travelogue there is more time in future to reflect on my notes for our final report and output from the research side of the trip.  But one of the drivers top change here seems to be the strong position of the mayor and strong leadership for the city using an entrepreneurial spirit.  A real drive to get stuff done, to improve the lives of those who live in the city.



I'm hyped.  Luckily enough have another day and a bit to go and enjoy a little more of the city.  And maybe if I have time reflect a little more on the feedback from everyone we met, to whom I am very grateful, again.