Bike speed test

is bike commuting
the quickest option?

It's commonly accepted wisdom here in The Windy City that getting around by bike is faster than driving or using mass transit. How much faster depends on the route, traffic conditions, as well as your overall willingness to flout city and state laws. Several weeks ago I did my own experiment when I put an out-of-town guest on the Brown Line at Belmont Avenue bound for Addison Street while I biked there. I showed up a good 10 minutes before he did.


Today, while rummaging around The NYTimes On-line Archives, I discovered a similar but decidedly more scientific experiment conducted here on 9 October 1937. It put up a biker against a taxi, The L, a private car, a horse, a bus, a street car, and a pedestrian. The course was a little more than a mile starting at Dearborn & Quincy and finishing at Halstead & Van Buren, southwest of the Loop. The results were impressive: