Bikes
Five Days Out: Your Pre-Primary Cycling Checklist
A handful of deadlines converge this week, and today has two of them:
Today, March 12, 5:00 PM: The deadline to apply for a vote-by-mail ballot for the March 17 Illinois primary. If you haven't applied and still want one, submit your application before 5 PM. A caution from the League of Women Voters: USPS has been taking up to three days to postmark mail, so if you already have your ballot, use a drop box or hand it to a postal clerk and ask for a manual postmark rather than dropping it in a collection box.
Tonight, March 12, 6 PM: Chicago Family Biking hosts a Bike Bus Leader Training at Butcher's Tap, 3553 N. Southport. If you've thought about starting a neighborhood bike bus for kids and families, this is where to start.
Sunday, March 15: The Portage Park Neighborhood Bike Network online survey closes. CDOT is proposing three new bike lanes (Central, Laramie, and Montrose) and five neighborhood greenways across the northwest side. The March 5 community meeting drew 200+ people; the online survey has already received hundreds of responses. Three minutes of your Sunday is a meaningful signal for late-2026/early-2027 construction. Survey available in English and Spanish at the link above.
Tuesday, March 17: Illinois primary. The question for any state legislative candidate in your district: where do you stand on HB 2454? As covered yesterday, the bill would make cyclists "intended users" of every road where biking is legal — reversing a 1998 Illinois Supreme Court ruling that currently lets municipalities off the hook for cyclist injuries on 90% of city streets. The Active Transportation Alliance publishes candidate assessments worth checking before you vote.
Smart Streets: Automated Enforcement Arrives for Bike and Bus Lanes
A quieter piece of cycling infrastructure news: Chicago has launched Smart Streets, a program using cameras mounted on city vehicles to automatically issue warnings and tickets for vehicles parked in bike and bus lanes. Eight city vehicles are currently equipped; cameras on CTA buses are expected to roll out this spring once procurement is complete.
Whether automated enforcement actually changes behavior at scale remains to be seen — the strongest evidence on this comes from cities with longer track records, like New York — but the direction is right. Parked cars in bike lanes are not an inconvenience; they're a safety hazard that forces cyclists into moving traffic. A ticket that arrives in the mail may get the attention that a visual obstruction doesn't.
Lead
The Arithmetic Gets Sharper
The Natural Resources Defense Council published updated guidance this week: to meet the approximately 20-year federal replacement timeline under the EPA's Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, Chicago needs to be replacing ~20,000 lead service lines per year. The city's current target for 2026 is 10,000. The target for 2027 is 15,000. Neither meets the federal bar.
Meanwhile, Sen. Tammy Duckworth is calling on the Senate to restore the $125 million cut from the lead service line replacement budget — a cut that came via ICE funding, not infrastructure policy, which tells you something about how the federal calculus is working right now. She singled out the contrast with Newark and Rockford, both of which have made substantially faster progress than Chicago despite having fewer pipes.
The city expects to spend the rest of its $325 million federal loan (roughly $235–255M is still unspent as of early 2026) before the end of this year, when the loan expires. Commissioner Conner has told alderpersons it will happen. Whether the city has the contractor capacity and administrative throughput to actually turn loan dollars into replaced pipes at that pace is the real question. The NRDC's full recommendations include specific suggestions on administrative reforms and public outreach that are worth reading.
Free replacements remain available for households below 80% AMI ($83,350 for a family of four). Information: LeadSafeChicago.org.
Housing & Abundance
ADU Countdown: 20 Days
April 1 is now three weeks minus a day away. A reminder of what happens on that date: Chicago's permanent citywide ADU ordinance takes effect, and building permit applications open the same day.
The expansion is real but uneven. All multifamily residential zones (RT, RM districts) citywide get ADUs as-of-right. Single-family zones — the most common zoning classification in the city — require an aldermanic opt-in, meaning your alderperson's posture matters. The city has received about 1,031 ADU applications since the pilot launched in 2021, with only 398 permits actually granted — a sign that administrative friction remains a live issue even before the citywide rollout.
Coach house builders specifically: the apprenticeship requirement for contractors is real and often catches owners off guard. Permit tracker: Chicago Cityscape ADU. Questions: adu@cityofchicago.org.
On the state side: HB 5626 (the BUILD plan) picked up Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth as Chief Co-Sponsor this month, signaling continued movement through the spring session. The bill would extend ADU rights statewide, eliminate parking minimums for small residential units, and legalize single-stairway buildings across Illinois. Committee hearings are expected to accelerate after the March 17 primary. The Illinois Policy Institute has a readable breakdown of the ADU provisions.
Timely: Vote-by-mail application deadline today, March 12 at 5 PM. Tonight: Bike Bus Leader Training, 6 PM, Butcher's Tap. Portage Park Bike Network survey closes March 15. Illinois primary March 17 — ask candidates about HB 2454. City Council meets March 18. ADU ordinance effective April 1 (20 days).