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Bicyclists not free to ride as they please
A police crackdown in the city's Lakeview neighborhood carries a
warning: Traffic laws that apply to cars also apply to bikes.

By Kelly Kennedy - Tribune staff reporter -Published July 20, 2005

When bicycle police stopped Jacob Meehan at Roscoe and Halsted Streets
in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, he immediately knew what he had
done.

"I was going the wrong direction on a one-way," Meehan said.

"No, we caught him going through a stop sign," the officer said.

"Oh," Meehan said.

Police spent six hours Tuesday on bike patrol in Lakeview, giving out
37 warnings to bicyclists for running red lights, riding on sidewalks
and, indeed, going the wrong direction on a one-way street. Next
month, police will start handing out tickets, with fines that range
from $25 to $250.

Members of Mayor Richard Daley's Bicycling Ambassadors, an educational
outreach group, were also in Lakeview on Tuesday, passing out bike
safety information and maps showing routes with bike lanes or wide
streets. They'll be out again in Lakeview from 1 to 9 p.m. Wednesday.

"It's kind of annoying because I was trying to do my thing, but it's
understandable," Meehan said about the police stop. "At least they
were gracious enough to give me a warning."

Then he asked the officer if he should be wearing a helmet in Chicago.

Yes.

Bicyclists in the neighborhood agreed they tend to ignore the rules,
and that it could lead to injury. Police decided to start on Halsted
Street because business owners had complained about too many bicycles
on the sidewalks, Chicago Police Sgt. Phil Greco said.

"We're not out to hurt anyone with a citation," Greco said. "We're
just out here to make it safer."

Greco said a lot of bicyclists do not know that only children younger
than 12 may ride on sidewalks or that the same laws that apply to cars
apply to bicycles. But some of them do and ignore the rules.

Just after scooting through a red light, Josh Zaffino said police had
no reason to patrol the neighborhood because most of the bicyclists
are regulars who know the rules.

"Granted, there was a red light back there," he said, "but there
weren't any cars."

As he spoke, another man drove his bike past on the sidewalk.

Zaffino said he sometimes rides his bike on the wrong side of the
road, but that sometimes it is hard to get over to the correct side
when traffic is heavy.

"But it's not a problem," he said. "If people are coming from the
other direction, bikers always get out of the way."

Eve Jennings, program director for the Bicycle Ambassadors, said
bicyclists need to obey the law because they cannot always be sure
what everybody else is going to do. For example, a person opening a
car door might look to the rear to make sure no one is coming, but not
forward because traffic is not supposed to be coming from that
direction.

And bicyclists need to be safer in general. Jennings said seven
bicyclists died in 2003 in Chicago. "We want more people to bicycle,"
she said. "We aren't here to scare people, but they have to be safe."

Since she began in her position four years ago, Jennings said she has
seen more people biking, as well as more bike lanes and programs for
bicyclists.