iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Cities have been built out in a car-centric way for decades - so how should government rebalance that and make biking safer? Alderperson Vasquez talked to us about the the city plays in building bike infrastructure so people can get around, and how good communication can help combat frustrations!

4187 18

We'll now also show an active filter panel on the map to show if you're only showing certain types of bike routes, or routes built this term - making screenshots more clear! You'll also notice filtered out routes still show on the map, just faded out. And you can filter by lane type here too!

A map of Ward 40 showing routes built this term, with a variety of greenways, and showing it's Alder Vasques with 16.1% calm bike streets with a #3 badge and 15.1 miles of bike routes, with 10.3 miles built this term, with a #1 badge

A map of the 40th ward showing just neighborhood greenways

130 3

Next up - rankings and a leaderboard! Before, you could sort by different stats on our ward table at the bottom of the page, but there's now a dedicated leaderboard, and we'll show badges on the ward panels for the top 10 wards on calm bike street share and routes built this term.

A map of Ward 48 bike lanes, showing 25.7% calm bike streets, with a #1 badge, and 10 total miles of bike routes, with 5.7 miles built this term, with a #8 badge

Alder Manna-Hoppenworth highlighted on a leaderboard modal, showing #1 for calm bike streets percentage, with 25.7%

140 4

Chicagoans Who Bike @chiwho.bike · 15/09/2026

We've got some big updates to the ChiWhoBike ward map! (chiwho.bike/map) First, citywide stats. You can now view stats for the whole city, which we had calculated before, but there was no way to view it! You can also hover or click each lane type to view just bike routes of that type.

A map of Chicago showing all bike lanes, with 3.8% calm bike streets, and 399 miles of bike routes, and 453 miles including trails, excluding 47 miles of shared bike lanes (roads with sharrows)

1171 17

How can you make a Chicago neighborhood more bikeable? In our first interview with a sitting alder, we talked to 40th Ward Alderperson Andre Vasquez at the Ainslie Arts Plaza about building bike infrastructure - and this is just a clip from our full interview, linked below! 👇

2346 34

With that in mind, we've decided to ignore any marked shared lanes in our totals - they weren't in our calm bike percentage before, but now also won't count towards bike route totals. This actually drops total bike lanes citywde from 500 miles to 398 miles - 100 miles were shared lanes!

Ward 43 bike map showing 10.5 miles of bike routes and trails, before changes

After changes showing 7.0 miles of bike routes, with 9.5 miles including trails, due to 1 mile of marked shared lane on Lincoln Ave

With all that in mind, most alders haven't had a lot of influence on the trails that run through their wards, and a lot of trail mileage in a ward doesn't mean it's easy to bike around that neighborhood - so we've removed it from the total! Now let's talk shared lanes.

A bike with two arrows over it (often called a sharrow) on a far Northwest side (or perhaps Evanston road)

130 3

Long bike trails like the lakefront trail are absolutely bike infrastructure, used not just for leisure riding, but also by commuters! But there's a few issues - not all trails are made the same, and most trails aren't very useful for more local trips, and trails can't grow very often.

Ward 42 bike map before changes, showing 12.6 miles of bike routes & trails

Ward 42 map after changes showing 8.2 miles of bike routes, with a note beneath that it's 12.1 miles including trails

Are shared lanes or bike trails infrastructure? We've been getting a lot of feedback on our Chicago Ward Biking Map, so we've made some tweaks - shared lanes and bike trails will no longer count towards a ward's bike route total. Here's an example from ward 44, and let's explain why 🧵

Ward 44 bike map, showing 8.4 miles of bike routes and trails, with 0 miles built this term, but 1.1 mi is trail, 0.1 mile is trail access path, and 0.6 mi are shared lanes

Ward 44 bike map but now the side panel counts only 6.6 miles of bike routes, with 7.8 miles including trails, and marked shared lane faded out in the list and excluded

1192 19

And lastly, Ward 47 under Ald. Martin, which went from 12.3% calm to 14.4% calm with the addition of more protected lanes on Clark Ave and greenways on Ravenswood Ave!

Ward 47 showing a dark green line extending almost all of Clark now and a new light green line on Ravenswood Ave

Next up, Ward 40 under Ald. Vasquez, going from 12.5% to 16.1% calm with the addition of the Lincoln Ave and Pratt protected bike lanes!

A bike route map of Ward 40 (Ald. Vasquez) showing 12.5% calm

The same map but with new dark lines on Lincoln Ave and at Pratt Ave on the North with 16.1% calm

Next, Ward 3 under Ald. Dowell, up a dramatic 1.5% to 7.2% with the addition of the Indiana and Wasbash Ave. Wabash may change in the future as data updates reflect removal of some of that infrastructure.

A bike route map of Ward 3 under Ald Dowell showing 1.5% calm streets

Ward 3 now showing long green vertical lines for Indiana and Wabash Ave

110 1

Our bike map (chiwho.bike/map) has only been out a few hours, but we've got a big update. We got a tip that our data wasn't the latest available, so we updated it to December 2025, and a lot of wards got new infrastructure! First, Ward 35 under Ald. Quezada - up from 7.1% to 9.5% calm streets.

A bike map of Ward 35, showing 7.1% calm streets

An updated bike map of Ward 35 now showing Logan Square, now at 9.5% calm showing more of Milwaukee Ave being protected and more of Belmont Ave being protected

2102 10

We'll jot that down as a feature request! In the meantime, you could subtract the "off-street trail" portion from the total. So like in Ward 43, since there's 2.4 miles of trail and 2.1 miles of trail access path (which seems likely duplication) that'd be 7.6 miles

Ward 43 (Timothy R. Knudsen)
2.6% calm bike streets (1.1 mi)
12.1 mi of bike routes & trails
1.1 mi built this term (2023-Sept. 2025)

Painted bike lane: 3.9 mi (32%)
Trail access path: 2.4 mi (20%)
Off-street trail: 2.1 mi (18%)
Buffered bike lane: 2.0 mi (16%)
Neighborhood greenway: 1.1 mi (9%)
Marked shared lane: 0.5 mi (4%)
Other route: 0.1 mi (1%)
Protected bike lane: 0.1 mi (0%)

* 3.1 mi on ward border, counted with neighbors

https://chiwho.bike/map/ward/43

210 2

One feature we forgot to mention - you can see a table of all the alders at the bottom of the page, and sort by the stats you're interested in! Also we got notified that we're missing some bike routes in Wards 30 & 35, and will be investigating! If you see any other routes missing, let us know.

A table of every ward's bike stats sorted by calm bike infra, with Ward 48 (Manaa-Hoppenworth) first with 25.7%, Ward 34 (Conway) second with 18.2%, then Ward 40 (Vasquez) with 12.5% and Ward 47 (Martin) with 12.3%, and so on

160 6

Lastly, this new calm bike streets percentage is also integrated into our Take Action page (chiwho.bike/act) so anyone looking to reach out to their alder also gets this info and can learn more!

The Find Your Alder portion of the ChiWhoBike take action page, with ward 40 pre-populated with Alder Andre Vasquez, with a link to view 12.5% calm bike streets

180 8

And if you want to check our work, you can click the gear icon and view our debug mode, where you can see the miles of streets we count, and the routes in the city data we exclude (primarily rivers and highways)

A Map Settings modal open with an option for "Debug Mode: Audit Street Mileage" checked.

A map of all the streets in Ward 48, with a clear city grid in blue, border streets in purple, and Lake Shore Drive in red

170 7

We also handle ward borders, where bike lanes can be a collaboration between two wards, like Clark Street between Wards 48 and 40. These shared routes are included in statistics and the map automatically on both wards, but you can choose to exclude them for your own analysis!

A map of Ward 48 bike routes (Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth)

31.2% calm bike streets (1.0 mi)
2.5 mi of bike routes & trails
0.9 mi built this term (2023-Sept. 2025)

Painted bike lane: 1.2 mi (50%)
Protected bike lane: 1.0 mi (39%)
Buffered bike lane: 0.3 mi (11%)

https://chiwho.bike/map/ward/48

A map of Ward 40 (Ald. Andre Vasquez Jr.)
12.5% calm bike streets (8.2 mi)
13.8 mi of bike routes & trails
7.8 mi built this term (2023-Sept. 2025)

Neighborhood greenway: 6.9 mi (50%)
Painted bike lane: 4.7 mi (34%)
Protected bike lane: 1.2 mi (9%)
Off-street trail: 0.5 mi (3%)
Buffered bike lane: 0.3 mi (2%)
Marked shared lane: 0.1 mi (1%)
Trail access path: 0 mi (0%)

* 5.7 mi on ward border, counted with neighbors

https://chiwho.bike/map/ward/40

190 9

You can also click "Only Routes Built This Term" to see routes built since in the alder's latest term (since the last municipal election in 2023). Note this data is up to date as of Dec. 2025 and comes from official city sources.

A map of bike routes built this term (since 2023) in Ward 43, showing only the Dickens Ave greenway, 1.1 miles

A map of Ward 40, Alder Vasquez showing bike routes built this term, with 7.8 miles built across greenways and the Clark protected bike lane

180 8

Now the important part - the stats! We calculate a ward's percentage of calm biking streets - think of this as routes a family can let their kid ride independently on, so we counted protected bike lanes and neighborhood greenways. Some wards are doing really well on this metric, while some aren't!

A map of Ward 43's bike routes (Ald. Timothy R. Knudsen)
2.6% calm bike streets (1.1 mi)

12.1 mi of bike routes & trails
1.1 mi built this term (2023-Sept. 2025)

Painted bike lane: 3.9 mi (32%)
Trail access path: 2.4 mi (20%)
Off-street trail: 2.1 mi (18%)
Buffered bike lane: 2.0 mi (16%)
Neighborhood greenway: 1.1 mi (9%)
Marked shared lane: 0.5 mi (4%)
Other route: 0.1 mi (1%)
Protected bike lane: 0.1 mi (0%)

* 3.1 mi on ward border, counted with neighbors

https://chiwho.bike/map/ward/43

A map of Ward 47 bike routes ( under aldMatthew J. Martin)
12.3% calm bike streets (8.2 mi)

19.6 mi of bike routes & trails
6.2 mi built this term (2023-Sept. 2025)

Painted bike lane: 8.2 mi (42%)
Neighborhood greenway: 7.1 mi (36%)
Marked shared lane: 1.9 mi (10%)
Protected bike lane: 1.1 mi (5%)
Off-street trail: 1.0 mi (5%)
Buffered bike lane: 0.3 mi (1%)
Other route: 0.1 mi (1%)

* 4.7 mi on ward border, counted with neighbors

https://chiwho.bike/map/ward/47

1120 12