Oak Forest about to get its street OPENED.

MAN, is my Irish up! Just in time too - OPEN STREETS OAK FOREST tomorrow (get the flyer), 9 am - 10:30 am, kicking off the Oak Forest Fleadh festival.

BIKE, WALK, RUN A CAR-FREE CICERO AVENUE MARCH 13

Human power takes over the road for OPEN STREETS OAK FOREST, 
9 - 10:30 a.m. before the Oak Forest Fleadh parade

Bike with your boyfriend! Play tag! Fly a kite! Open Streets Oak Forest is turning Cicero Ave. into a ONE MILE LINEAR PARK!

BIKE! WALK! DANCE! PLAY! Cicero Avenue will transform into a one-mile park for you, your family (even your dog!) and friends.
The event is FREE and does not require registration. Just show up!

Come out to Cicero Avenue from 151st Street to 159th Street whenever and wherever. Stop by any time between 9 and 10:30 a.m. Play as long as you’d like! Stay for the Fleadh parade and festivities afterward.

Sign up for all of the season’s bicycle rides and races at the Active Transportation Alliance tent in the Metra parking lot at 159th Street and Cicero Avenue.

OPEN EVENT - No registration required!

More information: http://www.oak-forest.org/community/OakForestFleadh.asp or contact Steve Buchtel, steve@activetrans.org or 708.365.9365.

Calumet-Sag Trail on Gapers Block

Writer Sheila Burt just hit it out the park on Gapers Block today - including the challen

Proposed bike path would link Oak Lawn to Cal-Sag

The Reporter reports on the draft Oak Lawn Bicycle Plan, prepared & presented by your friend

Image Gallery: 

Your kid won't hate you for your R-11 wall insulation

 Treehugger blogged yesterday on new LEED homes in communities with fa

 Oak Lawn will vote to adopt or reject the Oak Lawn Bicycle Plan on January 26.

From that day on, Oak Lawn streets will either begin to make its streets safer and more fun to ride on and across...or it won’t.

The recommendations in the Oak Lawn Bicycle Plan will guide the village toward bicycle friendly improvements the village can do quickly, like adding parking racks; within a few years such as creating a link to the Calumet-Sag Trail; and over the long-term, like taking on dangerous roads such as 95th St. and Southwest Hwy. The plan will help the village win the grant funding that will pay up to 80% or more of the cost of those improvements.

Adopting the plan sets Oak Lawn’s course toward sustainability and a higher quality of life. Rejecting the plan...doesn’t.

Filling the room with residents and cyclists who dream of and need a bicycle friendly community will tell the board to take leadership on making this plan a reality.

We need you in that room. Please attend the January 26 Village Board Meeting, 7:30 PM at the municipal center, Raymond and 95th St., just west of the library. Please consider riding to the meeting. Steve Buchtel, the consultant who worked with the village and residents to develop the plan, welcomes any of your questions beforehand. Reach him here: steve@activetrans.org, or 708/365-9365.

Redrawing the American (suburban) city

Five or six of the region's top city planners now work for towns in the Chicago Southland; traditionally, the Southland has been like the La Brea Tar Pits for municipal planners (who, admittedly, a

When: December 15, 2009; 7 PM - 9 PM

Where: Lake Katherine Nature Center Club House, about 1 mile west of Harlem on Rte. 83 (get map)

'Twas a year worth celebrating: the Friends raised $30,000 for the Calumet-Sag Trail in 2009, which will be matched by federal grants 5-1 — meaning $150,000 for planning and designing the Calumet-Sag Trail.

At the holiday social, the Calumet-Sag Trail's planners and engineers, from Town Builders Studios, Terry Guen & Associates, and URS, will take us on a tour of trail status, where the trail is going, visions for the trail, and the current timeline to ribbon cutting. We'll drink, and eat, and celebrate a long year past that was full of good work, and look forward to opportunities for the Friends in 2010.

Write to friends@calsagtrail.org for more information, or go to our website: http://calsagtrail.org.

Active Trans throws a spoke wrench into your Southland holiday plans

I’m an experienced, self-taught home bike mechanic, and have the deep knuckle scars and boxes of stripped & gouged bike parts and tools to prove it.

Move to a town with trails

 As a bicycle advocate in the Chicago Southland (my livelihood), my phone rings lots of times to introduce me to someone who moved into a community for very good reasons (usually), but now som