We want all families to be able to enjoy the freedom and fun of riding bikes in Chicago - from daily transportation to weekend pleasure rides.
Chicago Family Biking is a founding organizational member of the Safe Streets for All Coalition. The coalition advocates for safer streets through infrastructure and policy changes.
We activate our audience to support local projects, policies and initiatives. Our voice is strong, our mission is powerful.
SUPPORTING BIKE INFRASTRUCTURE & TRAFFIC CALMING
Protected bike lanes, neighborhood greenways and bike trails encourage more people to bike and keep them safe while they're doing it. We envision a more comprehensive bike network that provides a consistent ride experience in every neighborhood. Across the city, especially in residential neighborhoods, additional measures should be utilized to calm traffic. Traffic calming measures include raised crosswalks, curb bump-outs, street trees, median and refuge islands, as well as signal timing. Signal timing that ensures a green light at a slow pace (such as the 12 mph "Green Wave") along with street design improvements will also influence drivers to slow down.
DEMANDING BETTER, FAIR ENFORCEMENT
Driving behavior must improve to ensure the safety of our streets. We believe drivers must be held accountable for distracted driving, blocking bike lanes, and other dangerous behaviors from behind the wheel. Given our city's sordid history of discrimination and police misuse of the law, we strongly support the use of automated enforcement of traffic violations. Considering that speed is a primary factor in crashes that cause serious bodily injury, speed cameras should be more prolific to improve safety. More important than the cameras is the signage to inform drivers of the ubiquitous presence of cameras, so that the end goal is compliance and not accumulation of fines.
POSITIVE MESSAGING
We understand that there are people who ride bikes without following the rules of the road, but that doesn’t negate the rest of us who deserve safe streets. We want to put our stories front and center to counter the notion of what a “typical cyclist” might be. We are mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, sons and daughters. Some of us ride every day; some of us haven’t been on a bike in years; most of us fall somewhere in the middle.