In 2001, Bicycling Magazine selected Chicago as the best “big” city (over one million people) for bicycling in North America. This recognition was due in large part to the success of the Bike 2000 Plan. The plan has 31 recommendations to encourage bicycling in Chicago. There has been significant progress on every recommendation, including: establishing a network of 100 miles of on-street bike lanes and 50 miles of offstreet trails; installing 10,000 bike racks; staging innovative outreach programs, such as Safe Routes to School, the Bicycling Ambassadors and the annual Bike Chicago festival.
Despite these successes, many challenges remain. Chicago’s roads are clogged with traffic. Motorists spend hours stuck in traffic. Tailpipe emissions from automobiles and trucks account for almost half of Chicago’s air pollution, contributing to asthma and other respiratory problems suffered by more than 650,000 children and adults in Metropolitan Chicago. Inactive lifestyles may be contributing to an “obesity epidemic” in Chicago, with more than 20 percent of the city’s children and 60 percent of the adults overweight or clinically obese. Finally, dependence on the private automobile is expensive. Households in the Chicago region spend an average of 17 percent of their budgets, or $7,500 per year, on transportation.
The Bike 2015 Plan is the City of Chicago’s vision to make bicycling an integral part of daily life in Chicago. The plan recommends projects, programs and policies for the next ten years to encourage use of this practical, non-polluting and affordable mode of transportation. 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 and to reduce the number of bicycle injuries by 50 percent from current levels.
Each chapter of the Bike 2015 Plan identifies specific objectives to accomplish the chapter’s overall goal. One hundred fifty strategies detail how to implement these objectives in realistic, meaningful and cost-effective ways. Each strategy has one to three performance measures, defining the results expected and the timetable for completion. Strategies are listed in chronological order to indicate the schedule of completion. Most strategies identify “Best Practices” to benchmark with excellent projects. (The Web version of the plan provides hyper-text links to many of these best practices.) Finally, each objective lists possible funding sources, to help ensure the plan can be implemented and at less cost to the City of Chicago. Many of the recommended strategies are eligible for federal funding, particularly through the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ), Transportation Enhancement, and highway traffic safety programs.