That's not a parking spot. The lady is complaining about it not being safe getting out of the car and she's illegally parked lol

Almost all of the things people are mad they can’t do are illegal in the first place. So glad these bike lanes are there to make it harder to break the law and keep the street safer for everyone.

That bike path crossing by that family was so scripted and embarrassing. Safety for your kids? Lmao, you want 4 lanes of traffic where the cars are going 45+ mph right in front of your house where your kids are growing up?! This bike lane is a GREAT thing for Chicago

Did anyone else notice that the mom was illegally parked in a daylighting zone when she did the skit? Also did anybody see a driver stop at a stop sign in any of this footage?

More protected bike lanes in Chicago please! I honestly don't care if it makes the lives of drivers a little more inconvenient if it saves lives and makes our city a less car dependent one.

What a gift to have a bike lane right in front of ones house! They could get a cargo bike for the same price as one year of maintenance on their SUV. Kids & mom would be happier & healthier. Zero reason to have an SUV in the city where other mobility options are available.

So maybe the problem is, too many cars. I know, some have good reason to own a car, but many have a car because that's what they're used to. If you grew up in a suburb without sidewalks, you're probably going to want to have a car.

These bike lanes have massively improved my ability to move around the city. As someone who probably can’t afford a car it’s been a game changer!

I love the Augusta bike lane. It’s a huge improvement in the neighborhood. Data will show that injury crashes are way down. Sounds like most of the crashes they are talking about are parked cars getting their mirrors removed.

I love that mother freaking her kids out about bikes

Do drivers have to pay to store their cars on city streets? The vast numbers of cars parked seems the bigger issue than people riding bikes. Time to right-price parking costs. Also, the mom was parked in a spot that was clearly painted to indicate no parking allowed.

Love these bike lanes! Glad to see they are getting so much use

If Erin didn't park in daylight zone drivers and all road users could see each other better.

I'm amazed at the sequence of events at 2:20: the lady first calmly carries her child right out into motor vehicle traffic, then freaks out that same exact child about momentarily crossing a bike lane. Does she...really not see the irony?

I think these are a great improvement. Driver's always had to open their doors into a cycling and driving lane. This really isn't any different. When a group like drivers are favored by the system for so long, new found fairness for other groups like pedestrians and cyclists can feel like a loss for the initially favored group. I'm confident like CDOT that these changes will bear out and make the street far more safe for everyone.

I like how the concerned mother parked her car illegally anyway. Its a perfect example why we need curbed protected bike lanes, drivers won’t listen to rules!

How is that lady complaining about walking 2 feet with her kids to cross a bike lane. Get out of here

These bike lanes are an amazing addition to the neighborhood. Looking forward to the new ones coming to Grand as well

every street *without a bike lane* has you open your door into traffic. this is a standard problem of parking on a busy street. at least this street has a reasonable speed limit. way nicer than trying it around the corner on ashland. she'd also have more room if she tried parking in an actual parking space rather than over those no parking stripes. car-brains just love breaking the law, though.

As a Chicagoan who drives, walks, and sometimes bikes on Augusta, I love the new bike lanes and crosswalks. Much less stressful than the old design and just feels safer

I go out of my way to include safe lanes in my bike rides. Thanks to the progress on Augusta, I've gotten to easily explore that part of town.

Her paranoia is freaky... OMG A BIKE! ~Child screams like being attacked by rabid dog~

Omg that lady was acting so dramatic lol

I just traveled to chicago, and was able to use this new bike line by using one of the rideshare bikes! It was amazing to explore the city safely on a bike, i even threw my luggage on the bike rack 😹. The news conveniently leaves out the damage caused by the recent crashes, admitting that it was mostly sideswipes and parked cars. Sure the number of “crashes”is up, but I would be willing to bet that the crashes are not as dangerous or life threatening as before.

The SUV-driver’s kids will probably use that bike lane when they get older.

An important factor to control for in the crash data: bicyclist use might have gone up *exponentially* as this infrastructure makes it much safer for cyclists of all ages and ability levels to do so. On a per capita or per bicyclist-mile-or-minute basis, this might be the safest the corridor has ever been.

WHY did more crashes happen tho? because of cars that refuse to yield and wait ? cars that get mad and speed? i want to know WHY. but no WGN just bring it up and then don’t say anything. oh wait a minute…. the crashes were with PARKED CARS? SO ITS NOT BC OF THE BIKE LANES AND CYCLISTS.

Lady you're in a major metropolis. Anything can come from anywhere at any time.

I use the Augusta lanes 5 days a week and think they’re great. Chicago as a whole is a pretty hostile/uninviting place to bike so Augusta and Milwaukee have been sanctuaries for getting around

Its unfortunate but to many people in this city use the bike lane as a parking lane so there is that. We get tired of having to dip into the street because of someone parking in the bike lane.

bike lanes ARE child safety

The bike lanes are not delivery lanes for trucks who could care less about cyclist. I love Augusta bike lane!!!

You call this news? Give me a break. Do your homework next time instead of joke reporting like this. Ffs.

Get a daycare near you and WALK

I both bike and drive. I bike to work most days and like to drive. What is so difficult? When driving you need to pay attention

Accidents may be up but drivers have been driving way more insanely this year than I've ever witnessed before. And I'm a driver.

This is great. It forces drivers to be more cautious.

And when it snows? How many plow blades and parking blocks are we going to break?

There may be more people biking. And that’s why you have more accidents. If we want property values to go up, and if we want our city to prosper, the bicycle / micro transportation devices are the most important thing to calibrate our city for. If you go to Amsterdam and the Netherlands today - you will see what a beautiful future we can make here in Chicago. Cars are the enemy of livability and the urban environment.

Get rid of the free parking. Plenty of room for polluting killer cars and bicycles.

I have a solution to a few problems: Make the bike lane wider with additional clearance space for passenger side doors. People can safely exit their vehicle without worrying about bikes until they need to cross the lane, cyclists are even less worried about getting doored and are able to give people accessing their vehicles plenty of space, and emergency vehicles will have a wide enough lane that can readily be cleared for them to access a location or bypass vehicle traffic (cyclists can easily stop and move over to the sidewalk if needed - cars are more difficult to move out of the way on any moderately busy street)

Oh no with narrower lanes you might just have to pay attention to the road and not ur phone. God forbid.

Literally comparing driver convenience and damage to cars by drivers to the lives of pedestrians as if they were equal. Pathetic. Producing TV must rot the brain.

Wish we didnt sell our streets to Abu Dhabi, we would’ve had this opportunity long ago

They should pay city sticker that street too small for garbage trucks

if u though traffic was bad get ready for a shit show

I don't like it. The road is so much smaller now. Their is barely any wiggle room to avoid pothols or stuff in the street. I really think that bikes would be safer going against traffic in the original bike lanes. That way a biker can see the cars coming at them and avoid a car if they needed.

You can learn your children to be carefull on the bike lanes, it is just a proces for children. Here kid will be more independent from the parents, and that is a good for both.

Because cars are parked far away from the curb, it's difficult for drivers who are pulling onto Augusta from side streets to see cross traffic so they inch out far and block the bike lane and part of the driving lanes. Amazon trucks, Ubers, Fed-Ex and Grubhub drivers now simply stop in the middle of the streets and double park. I've seen that lead to multiple near head on collisions when cars pull into oncoming traffic to get around them. The street is much more congested and drivers also drive around more looking for spots since so many were removed. More pollution. I've also seen emergency vehicles get delayed. Let's see how this plays out when snow comes. Don't know yet.

2:28 Get a smaller car. She drives a super wide SUV and is upset that she is opening her door into traffic. They make narrower cars. She literally made this problem for herself and then complains about it. It's like buying a truck and complaining about gas prices. You choose that life.

Don't really know the neighborhood, but Augusta seems like a very narrow street to implement such a bike lane (bike advocate here...). That said, motorists need to FREAGIN SLOW DOWN, pay attention and stop playing with their phones. Bad cyclists need to behave better.

As an avid cyclist, I find that these protected bike lanes are a wrongheaded response. There are far too many unintended(?) consequences, just to serve a minority cohort of travelers. Now that the weather has cooled, you're likely to see only 1 cyclist per 100 people traveling on these streets

maybe if drivers new how to drive the crashes wouldn't happen

Watching that mom unload her kid from her SUV all carefully as if its the bicyclists who are the problem is hilarious. She needs to get a grip. In a city, a bakfiet, a longtail with seats, would be amazing. Itd make her kids life so much better, happier. Itd save her thousands, hundreds of thousands in the cost of the car, gas, and parking. Less pollution for her kid and the rest of the future generation. So dissapointing. Why is parking and cars so expensive drivers wonder? Bcause cars don't belong in cities. I hope she learns to do better for her kid.

Solid reporting malpractice guys 👍 keep up the FUD!

Funny.. part of city living. Deal with it lmfao

As someone who has children that commutes daily these bike lanes have made the commute absolutely terrible. Furthermore, for a city that’s cold 4 months out of the year the bike lanes seem a little overdone. Obviously the people on their bikes (who will basically run you over if you’re walking or not let you pass.) Love the bike lanes but they’ve made traffic terrible for the majority of people. Seems to be a microcosm of what society is becoming. Making special rules for a small minority of people that effect the majority of us

These types of lanes are good for casual riders, very dangerous for advanced cyclists. I use the road instead of these lanes. Along Milwaukee north of Armitage, NO ONE pays attention when walking across the lane. Same with Milwaukee south of Ashland. You will definitely collide with pedestrians if you’re going faster than 10 mph.

They're taking up space on the road. They should have to get stickers for they're bike F bike riders

These bike lanes are more dangerous because it causes greater amount of blind spots for cyclists. Also people who call them 'bikers' is a tell that they don't actually ride that seriously

I would love to hear about the Opinions from people who Bike AND drive often, what do you think the most balanced solution is? Almost every day in Downtown Chicago, you will see a Cyclist arguing with a Car driver, or a Collision between the two.

jenna aint missing any meals

Such a waste of space. It's causing more traffic. Now delivery drivers will double park and block the street because they can't get to the curb.

They should add tolls to the bike lanes. Make the bikers pay for this inconveniences for the bulk of the workforce aka drivers.

Get those bikes out of here! Get a car dude!