Sometimes at night when it’s nice out and I want to get a bit of air and exercise I’ll walk across Kinzie and up Milwaukee for a while before catching the train or bus home. There are many many many bikers on Milwaukee Avenue. Probably more than I’ve seen on any other street. Well, maybe Lincoln has as many. It’s a toss up. Anyway, a lot of these bikers commute on Milwaukee Avenue as far as they can to downtown and then cut across on the Kinzie Street.
The awesome thing is that Kinzie now has Chicago’s first protected bike lane. The bike lane is next to the curb and next to it is a buffer area and sometimes an additional row of parking and then the car lane. All together there is up to 12 feet between bikers and car traffic. This lane on Kinzie only goes for about a half mile, but Mayor Emanuel has promised to install 100 miles of protected bike lanes in Chicago over the course of his 4-year term.
