The winter weather is almost behind us, and for your friendly neighborhood Chaddick team, that means it’s time to get excited about summer biking around Chicago!

Apparently, Mayor Emanuel is thinking the same thing. He, along with the city’s Department of Transportation, is proposing amendments to the contract with Divvy operator Motivate International.

We at Chaddick are fully behind this proposal, which, if passed by City Council, would bring bikesharing to all 50 of the city’s wards and make hopping on a Divvy bike much easier for tens of thousands.

We feel passionately about this issue. Our report, Dimensions of Divvy, authored by C. Scott Smith and Riley O’Neil, traced the evolution of our docked bikeshare system through its first and second expansions to its current network of 600 stations and 6,200 bicycles. We found that Divvy has:

• improved connections to public transit
• made strides toward broadening access to lower-income communities; and
• provided a time-saving travel option to private vehicle travel

Plus, thanks to Divvy For Everyone and other community-based programs, Chicago is regarded by many as a national success story when it comes to bikesharing.

But the road ahead is bumpy. The largest share of Divvy bikeshare stations remains concentrated in middle- to higher-income areas of the city. Much of the south and southwest sides are underserved, with little relief in sight.

The areas of greatest economic hardship in Chicago (shown above in red) tend to be on the South, Southwest and West sides. Our analysis shows that, although the share of stations in these areas has increased (see pie charts), these neighborhoods continue to be disadvantaged in terms of both the quantity and density of stations.

Also, usage in some areas across the city has plateaued, and future investments remain uncertain. A looming funding shortfall, coupled with Divvy’s chronic inability to return a profit, makes it imperative that the city find new ways to improve the system. We can’t afford to hit the brakes as technological advancements – such as electric bikes and dockless systems – change the way bikes are being shared nationwide.

The Mayor’s efforts to address these problems through an amendment to the contract with Motivate are commendable. It would grant Motivate, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lyft, exclusive rights to offer the sharing of bikes in the city over a nine-year period in exchange for assuming the financial burden of extensive expansion, operation, and maintenance.

Under the proposal, Lyft would add 10,500 bikes and 175 stations over the next three years to create a total system with approximately 16,500 bikes and 800 stations. Residents would see a 50 percent increase in bicycles over the first year alone. Excitingly, all new bikes would be “electric pedal-assist” with “hybrid-locking” capability, giving riders ready access to state-of-the-art mobility technologies. The agreement requires city approval when fares are increased more than 10 percent in a year, and the city retains approval over any new fare product, fare policy and fees as well as oversight via service level agreements.

Are there risks? Of course. But the upside is considerable, making this a good deal for our city. Let’s make it so everyone can enjoy a Divvy bike year-round, including during our glorious summer seasons!

— Chaddick Team

By: Joanna McCall

In this blog, I will explain some fascinating aspects of individuals that work on their bikes. We have all seen them; maybe a Jimmy John’s employee has cut you off recently, maybe you have noticed the same person trekking downtown from your neighborhood with a sling bag and a radio every day, or maybe you have fond (or not so fond) memories of delivering local newspapers in high school. Whatever your relationship has been thus far, we are about to take a small dive into this world.

Let us start with messengers. These hard-working employees often work for downtown companies, making trips in and out of messenger centers all day, mainly on their bicycles. Notably, some of the “classic” forms of messengering—e.g., delivering paper documents – have shrunk due to the major advances in communicative technologies. Still, in large cities, many streets remain abuzz with bike messengers working weekdays 9-5. Short trips around downtown dominate this sector, but most companies also have “longboard riders” who travel greater distances and occasionally use vans as well. In Chicago, two of the most prominent messenger companies are 4 Star and US Messenger. If you want to take a deeper dive into some of the history here, look into Chicago’s own Joey Love and the X-Men from New York City. Pioneers in messengering undoubtedly deserve attention.

As the number of jobs in this more traditional mode declined, more courier work began to emerge. This work primarily consists of food delivery and various other cargo work. This strong emergence can be attributed to many circumstances, and it evolved into a model creating a substantial number of bicycle jobs in our cities. A notable presence here in Chicago at the beginning of this shift was Uptop. I currently work for Cut Cats Courier Collective, one pioneer of the courier “collective model”, which provides all workers enhanced responsibility to the company and to each other. This model allows the groups to contract clients they choose, either self-dispatch or be dispatched by another collective member, mediate the rates and conduct all matters of business within the company. Messenger and courier work can notoriously be dictated by some basement dispatcher and sustained by small checks, and this model works to break this mold in terms of jobs quality.

This collective approach is also being used in other cities. You can see Send It Courier in Toronto, Confluence Courier in Denver and Brick Road Courier in Orlando as a sample. Rain, shine or snow, these companies operate every day of the year. Only once in my four years as a courier have I been sent home early due to weather conditions: the Super Bowl blizzard three years ago. The only person capable of completing any deliveries that night had a cargo bike with a trash can full of chains on the front and his bike weighed just enough not to slide around.

Outside of this contracted model, you also have bicycle work in house for various restaurants. In some smaller cities, this is the primary source of employment on a bicycle. Restaurants such as Jimmy Johns and Potbelly come to mind. I worked at Jimmy Johns about five years ago. Their slogan, “freaky fast” is no hyperbole. I recall the fast paced environment in which a sandwich was required to be delivered within ten minutes of an order being placed. I also found many transient high school and college students came and went, eager to make a few bucks.

But one of the biggest stories of late is the surge in app-based bicycle workers employed by the likes of Ubereats, Grubhub, Postmates and Amazon. Cyclists working for these companies operate much the same way that Uber or Lyft drivers do; deciding their own hours at their convenience. This model of bicycle delivery varies in a few areas. First, the technology eliminates the role of the dispatcher. Secondly, the riders do not have a singular restaurant providing deliveries such as Jimmy Johns, or familiarity with contracted clients and their packaging. Finally, they have no structure allowing the deliverer to build “sets” and make money off of, say, four deliveries at a time. I suspect and hope that the efficiencies in these “gig economy” deliveries will grow as new strategies unfold, however they are no longer new and these models do not prioritize the worker.

When you’re working in food you’re also dependent on different ordering platforms to various degrees, depending on how you’ve built up your clientele. Some ordering platforms are already pushing delivery services in new directions. Recently, GrubHub acquired a platform called Eat24. It happens that Eat24 had hired many local courier services around the country as their exclusive delivery service. In the process, GrubHub has taken massive amounts of work from smaller companies. My bias, but also my experience, led me to applaud Eat24 for this business move: hiring a local company for their own expansion. GrubHub does not appear to value this sort of relationship the same way.

I would also like to make a prediction: American cities will soon see an influx of bicycle workers. It seems only a matter of time before the “mixed bag” of entities now operating in this sector will be replaced by a more integrated and less confusing structure. As Amazon and other monoliths consolidate—we are seeing pushback to cars taking “curb space” due to the surge in Lyft and Uber. This leads me to believe we will see bicycles play a larger role in the bigger strategic picture. Moreover, companies like one I work for are partnering with local restaurants or restaurant groups to test out new ordering platforms. Those findings could help improve the consumer experience and provide more quality jobs to bicyclists. Old-school messengering may continue to shrink, but food, cargo and other package delivery groups seemed poised for a takeoff. In the end, there could lead to a Darwinian struggle between companies like mine and various app-based startups. In fact, it’s already playing out to some degree today.

As we promote “active transportation” in cities struggling with issues such as congestion, curb-use and limited parking availability, it is encouraging to see bicyclists as part of the solution—and to see them continue to get paid for riding. Cities have every reason to pay attention to this small “enclave of employment” and work to provide bicyclists with a safe and efficient operating environment.

On Thursday, May 10th, the Chaddick Institute released our latest installment of our Policy Series. This report, titled “Uber Economics: Evaluating the Monetary and Nonmonetary Tradeoffs of TNC and Transit Service in Chicago, Illinois”, explores the ways in which transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft are used in contrast – and in conjunction – with public transit.

In addition to analyzing the estimated travel cost and times for over 600 trips in Chicago, we also highlight several exciting TNC-transit partnership programs throughout the country.

Head on over to our website here to check it out, and if you have access to PowerPoint, download our quick overview of possible synergies between TNCs and transit here.

By: Elizabeth Balsavich

For many of the graduate students active with the Chaddick Institute, the city’s famous “Loop” district is their preferred place to work, recreate, and socialize.

When we think of the factors that make this area so inviting, we usually don’t think of cardboard boxes, dumpsters, narrow alleyways.  Yet the Chicago Loop Alliance has combined all three to make an interesting and memorable series of events called ACTIVATE.

I had the opportunity to check out the last ACTIVATE event of the year with a group from Chaddick.  “Simple, strange, chaotic, and eccentric” are all the words I’d use to describe the atmosphere. Being from a rural town in Michigan, I must admit I was a bit out of my element.  At one point, we were quite literally dancing next to a row of empty garbage bins!  Although I was a fish out of my pond, I almost instantly found an appreciation for why these types of events are all the rage in many major cities.

These event series turn alleys into creative spaces to exhibit the vast array of art that this city has to offer; they also bring together people to interact with this home-grown art face-to-face. The theme on this night was waste; hence, the dumpsters and cardboard boxes were everywhere.

Our group – all graduate students from the School of Public Service and Sustainable Urban Development programs– took advantage of the towers of cardboard boxes. With teamwork and creativity, we created a rather large transformer who loves to give free hugs! We amazed bystanders who even asked for a coveted photo-op with our giant cardboard creation. We study policies, public service, and urban planning, but we can harness our inner child and build things too!

Amidst the chaos and business of the city there is a rare and underappreciated beauty—people of all ethnicities, cultures, ages, orientations, and interests can come together in an alley and simply enjoy the oddity and excitement of socializing among strangers…and, well, dumpsters.  This event brought it back to its most beautiful state of simplicity.

What were some key takeaways?

• Chicago has some impressively creative artists, not to mention some surprisingly clean alleys.
• Somehow, the Chicago Loop Alliance was able to transform an ally – dumpsters and all – into a museum, a dance floor, a bar and a playground all in one.
• Our School of Public Service students’ innovation was on full display, using cardboard boxes to build our own creation.

In the bigger picture, the event provided me new insights into how these events can give cities a new dimension.  Buildings can only be built so high and new parks can only achieve so much.  Who would have ever thought that an alley could be used as an art exhibit, a bar, and a creative space? I applaud CLA for thinking “out of the box”.

Cheers to the Chicago Loop Alliance for identifying and capitalizing on such hidden potential – check out their website to find out more, and keep an eye peeled for next summer’s events!

Can’t wait for next year!

-Liz

By C. Scott Smith, Assistant Director, Chaddick Institute, and Riley O’Neil, graduate student

One of the major advantages of living in Chicago compared to other US cities is having access to a broad range of transportation options.  The proximity of homes and workplaces to public transportation routes has contributed greatly to the success of Chicago’s transit system, which now handles about 600 million passenger trips each year.  We estimate that 1.1 million (close to 100% of total) workers and 1.3 million (about 98% of total) jobs in Chicago are within ½ mile of a bus stop or rail station.

For people with disabilities, however, access to public transportation can be limited.  Chicago’s enormous system of commuter rail lines, elevated rail/subways, and bus routes—not to mention other “shared use mobility services” such as e-scooter sharing, bikesharing, carsharing and ridesourcing (via Uber and Lyft, for example)— do not always accommodate people who experience disability situations (e.g., passenger traveling via wheelchair or with stroller attempting to access transit via train station without an elevator). This blog summarizes key accessibility gaps working people with varying abilities face in Chicago’s public transportation system.

Accessibility of Chicago’s rail stations

A simple way to gauge access for people with varying abilities is to tally the share of rail stations that fail to accommodate people with mobility limitations.  Presently, close to 20 percent (192) of all Metra commuter rail stations (239) and 33 percent of all ‘L’ stations are not fully accessible, or do not support wheelchair boardings.  The following figures show the proportion of stations for each Metra and Chicago Transit Authority ‘L’ line that is (not) accessible. On Metra, only three of the eleven commuter lines offer full accessibility and only half of the stations on the Metra Electric, in particular, have facilities that accommodate people in wheelchairs.  On the CTA, access on the Brown, Green, Pink and Yellow Lines is much better than that on the Red and Blue Lines.

Proportion of CTA ‘L’ Stations that are Wheelchair Accessible by Line

Proportion of Metra Stations that are Wheelchair Accessible by Line

This is not to say that these major transit operators have not taken steps toward making their infrastructure more accessible. According to CTA, when the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passed in 1990, only 6 percent of the agency’s rail stations complied with the legislation’s design standards; efforts by the agency over the past several years have grown this number to 67 percent. Further, just last year the CTA announced its All Stations Accessibility Program (ASAP), which aims to make the entire rail system accessible by 2036. However, such changes could not come too soon for many of the area’s visitors and residents with physical, cognitive and sensory limitations who experience difficulties traversing by private automobile; which is still the dominant mode of travel within the Chicago region.

Working age people experiencing disability

Making the transition toward a regional ADA compliant public transit system is especially important for Chicago’s working age population experiencing disability. Recent census data indicates that about 53.5 percent of people who have self-identified in the census as having limited mobility in Chicago are of working age; that is, between 18 and 64 years old. And while nearly 50 percent of people with disabilities over 25 years of age have at least some college education, only 19.1 percent are employed and only 24.7 percent participate in the labor force. Further, more than half of workers reporting a disability worked less than full time (compared to 34.2 percent for their counterparts who reported no such limitation) and earned 30 percent less than those who did not report a disability (American Community Survey, 2015).

Previous research has shown that public transit is an important way to improve labor force participation among people with disabilities in part because it tends to be more affordable and accessible than other modes, especially private automobile. For adults with disabilities, lack of adequate transportation is one of the most frequently cited reasons for being discouraged from looking for work. As the table below shows, people with mobility limitations in the City of Chicago tend to use shared modes (such as public transit, taxi and carpool) more than other workers, albeit slightly. People with mobility limitations also work from home more than those who reported no such limitation.

Estimating public transit employment accessibility for people with limited mobility

I used a variety of data sets to identify public transit accessibility gaps for working people with mobility limitations in the Chicago area. Most important were the public transit routes and schedules derived from general transit feed system or GTFS datasets provided by the three major service operators, Metra, CTA and Pace Suburban Bus. (It should be noted here that Pace’s GTFS data do not include information about wheelchair accessibility so, for simplicity sake, we assume that all 23,457 Pace bus stops in the dataset accommodate wheelchair boarding.) Employment distributions for all 2,014 census tracts in the metropolitan Chicago area were made available from the US Census Workplace Area Characteristics Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics dataset.

The employment accessibility estimates calculated as part of this research were also evaluated with respect to four scenarios, each representing a unique commuter mobility profile that is sensitive to maximum desired walking distance, average walking speed and whether commuters require wheelchair boarding accommodations. The estimates correspond to the average number of jobs that can be reached in a one hour journey during the peak morning commute period (i.e., 7AM-9AM at five-minute departure intervals) for each of the below profiles across Chicagoland.

The figure below shows that merely being constrained by the speed and distance in which one can walk can substantially reduce the number of jobs that can be reached. The walk constrained model reduces average job accessibility by 22.3 percent, while the lack of wheelchair reduces it by 30 percent. Clearly, as mobility becomes more constrained, job opportunities dwindle.  Making matters worse, the number of jobs reachable diminishes for all transit users when you are not traveling during. This is especially problematic for mobility constrained individuals who are more likely to work part time, have flexible hours and, therefore, may not always benefit from the higher frequency public transit services during the morning and evening rush.

The average percentages I provide above are for the morning peak period. To show this variability across different times of day, I created an animation comparing job accessibility for the full mobility and wheelchair constrained scenarios mentioned above starting at 7AM from the close-in community of Forest Park. This animations shows the job areas that commuters can reach by walking and using all types of public transit in a one-hour period.

This animation shows the job areas reachable within an hour by a fully mobile worker (shown in blue) and wheelchair constrained worker (shown in orange) by public transit. This difference in number of jobs reachable is often more than 100,000 depending on departure time.

Fortunately, there is growing awareness that our present transportation system is inadequate for a growing share of the population. Station/stop improvements, assistive technologies, Universal Design, Complete Streets and travel training are just a short list of efforts that are improving pathways to transit access for all people. Check back in a few months as we report more results on this issue. I welcome comments on this blog post, our first on this topic!

Chaddick friends,

We are excited to unveil a new blog by the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University. Chaddick Insights is a platform for analyzing issues and trends – and ultimately fostering discussion – about contemporary urban planning, transportation, and design.

Our first blog post, written by Chaddick Assistant Director, Scott Smith, focuses on the remarkable bicycling infrastructure that continues to emerge in our city’s downtown. We hope you’ll leave us a comment or question to get the discussion going – just be sure to stick to our blog etiquette guidelines, below!

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