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Chicago's Master Plan

While browsing through the Borders store in Fairview Heights, Ill., tonight, I saw these headlines blaring from the Chicago Tribune:

CHICAGO'S MASTER PLAN
DON'T DRIVE. JUST BIKE.
City peddling new proposal for 500-miles network of paths to be finished by 2015

This wasn't a small story nestled on the bottom of the Metro section. This was the main centerpiece on Page One.

According to the Tribune, 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.

The Bike 2015 Plan has two overall goals:

• To increase bicycle use, so that 5 percent of all trips less than five miles are by bicycle.
• To reduce the number of bicycle injuries by 50 percent from current levels.

I encourage you to read both the Tribune story and visit the Bike 2015 Plan Web site to learn more about the program.

Could the same thing happen in St. Louis? With a little forward thinking, it could.

The trail system in Madison County is a big step in the right direction. The trail systems makes it easy to go from town to town or to a major destination such as Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

The rest of the St. Louis region is behind the curve. While many of the region's trails are fine for recreational riding, many of them don't go anywhere that would be useful for commuters or people running errands.

The Metro-East Parks and Recreation District wants to solve some of that on the Illinois side of the river. The district received a $500,000 grant from the state of Illinois for work on a trail that would link Troy in Madison County with Scott Air Force Base. Other proposal can be found in the district's strategic action plan (PDF file).

On the Missouri side of the river, the Great Rivers Greenway District is working on plans to make trail corridors that would help connect Missouri communities. Bike St. Louis is a network of bike lanes and bike routes within the city of St. Louis.

While the region is concentrating on trails, cyclists still have to use streets and highways to get to most of the places they're going. Bicyclists and motorists need to learn to share the road, and motorists -- and bicyclists -- need to follow the rules of the road.

Roger 1 comments links to this post 8:27 PM   

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