Car, bike, public transit: What’s the best way to get around town?
What would win in a race between a car, bike and the Chicago Transit Authority?
Over the past few years, Chicago has been abuzz with road construction projects. There are more protected bike lanes, pedestrian refuge islands and curb bump-outs across the city. As we learned in our last episode, that also includes the installation of miniature traffic circles in residential areas. It’s all in service to make the roads safer by slowing cars down.
Safer streets is a win, but it doesn’t necessarily satisfy the urge to get somewhere fast. Cycling and public transportation are viable alternatives, but sometimes it’s hard to separate yourself from the convenience of driving somewhere.
In this episode, the Curious City team puts the different modes of transportation to the test in a good old-fashioned transit race. From the Garfield Park Conservatory to Navy Pier, who will win? Car, bike or public transportation?
Plus, Midwest correspondent for the Economist, Daniel Knowles makes the case for why we should rethink our relationship with cars, and answers why the fastest isn’t always the best.
“People will always drive if it's the most convenient or the quickest way,” said Knowles, author of “Carmeggedon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It.” “You can't exhort people to change, you have to kind of change the incentives.”
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Who thought traffic circles were a good idea? Do we need them?
Mini traffic circles at the intersections of residential streets might annoy drivers because they force cars to slow down. But their safety features outweigh the inconvenience.
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The curious case of the Swami Vivekananda Way street sign
Swami Vivekananda is credited with introducing Hinduism to the West. His work earned him an honorary street sign on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, but it went missing.
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Chicago’s LGBTQ+ library is a space for people to ‘find themselves in the shelves’
Early LGBTQ+ history can be hard to find. Photos, letters, literature and other artifacts have been destroyed or hidden away, in acts of homophobia, out of a fear of repercussions, and even by witting and unwitting family members.
“I think a lot of LGBTQ people, when they were passing away, their materials were being destroyed by family members that didn't understand them,” said Jen Dentel, the community outreach and strategic partnerships manager at Gerber/Hart, a large LGBTQ+ library and archive in Chicago. “And so having a space by us, for us, where we would collect and preserve the history became really important.”
As we learned in our last episode, some queer women boldly operated sapphic establishments in Chicago during the 1920s and ‘30s. However, there was very little written about these places. Often, the only evidence of their existence came in the form of old newspaper articles reporting on the sudden closure of these businesses at the hands of Chicago police.
In this episode, Dentel and Erin Bell, Gerber/Hart’s operations director, take us on a tour of this LGBTQ+ library and archive. They uncover archival treasures of the past, reveal unexpected moments in local gay history and explain the mission of the archive: to preserve queer history as a means of achieving justice and equality.
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Where are the girls? A look at early lesbian nightlife in Chicago
It’s not hard to find the LGBTQ+ hangouts in Chicago these days, but at one point it was. There’s a history of lesbian nightlife that goes back more than 100 years.
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