Record number of Divvy rides, more bike lanes made 2023 an ‘incredible’ year for cycling in Chicago, city official says

Chicago is coming off an “incredible year for cycling,” after installing 27 miles of “new and upgraded protected bike lanes,” building 18 miles of neighborhood greenways, distributing 1,900 free bikes and racking up a record 6.6 million trips on Divvy bikes, a city official said Wednesday.

David Smith, director of the Chicago Department of Transportation’s Complete Streets initiative, told a City Council committee that the city’s intense focus on expanding its network of protected bike lanes has already paid huge dividends, transforming Chicago into the cycling center former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a biking enthusiast who specialized in marathon rides, once promised.

The Divvy bike rental system is at an “all-time high,” up 70% since 2019, he said. Overall bike trips on an “average weekday” have increased by 120% over the same period.

“Pre-pandemic to today, there’s more than double the number of people riding a bike throughout the city of Chicago. This represents the highest growth in biking of any large city in the United States,” Smith told the Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety.

Last year, CDOT released what it called the “Chicago Cycling Strategy.” It was billed as a “community driven approach” to creating a “more connected, healthy and sustainable” city with the goal of “designing and implementing 150 miles of bikeways in the coming years.”

Owen Ziliak/Sun-Times

At the time, Chicago’s 420-mile “network of bicycle infrastructure” put half of city residents “within a half-mile of a protected bike lane, neighborhood greenway or off-street trail.” The “next 150 miles” were designed to raise that to 70% “one neighborhood at a time.”

After briefing committee members on the plan on Wednesday, Smith also told them about the focus on creating a “citywide network that connects all Chicagoans to regional destinations across communities” and about focusing on “shorter, neighborhood trips to schools, parks, local businesses and visits to friends and family.

He noted trips of one mile or less account for “almost a quarter” of all traffic on Chicago streets, while 40% of driving trips are less than two miles long.

“By making biking a great option for people, even just for these short trips, we can have an incredible impact on the health, safety and quality of life for our residents in every neighborhood,” Smith said, pointing to infrastructure and safety improvements already made in neighborhoods such as Belmont Cragin and North Lawndale in conjunction with reduced speed limits.

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Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Chair Daniel La Spata (1st), a cycling enthusiast, said he has already benefited from the bike lane on Belmont Avenue.

“That Kennedy [Expressway] on-ramp right there was a place where I was hit on my bike 10 years ago from behind [by] someone making a right turn onto the Kennedy. They knocked me down, waited long enough to see if I got back up and then, they kept driving onto the Kennedy,” LaSpata said.

“I didn’t ride my bike there for 10 years after that. And then, to have ridden there recently after a meeting and to just feel like I could breathe was really encouraging.”

For too long, Chicago’s cycling network had “this outdated hub-and-spoke model built on the assumption that everybody was trying to get to the Loop,” LaSpata said.

“That’s not what our lives are. … My trips are to Holstein Park, to Oz Park, to Mary Flowers Park, to get my daughter to day care. A half-mile trip to Target and to the gym. Being able to create bike networks in our neighborhoods that actually look like the rhythms and routines of our day — that is new for CDOT and really refreshing for all Chicago,” the chairman said.

Owen Ziliak/Sun-Times

Not everyone was in the cheering section.

South Side Ald. David Moore (17th) questioned the city’s decision to spend precious capital funds on bike lanes when there “so many communities” where residents complain they “can’t even walk down the street because it’s so bad.”

“If my community tells me to put a million bike lanes down, I’m all for it. But, that’s not what I’m hearing, and it’s causing a lot of issues in parts of certain communities,” Moore said.

“I have a situation where bike lanes were put down and streets were jacked up. Fix the damn street before you put the bike lane down.”