Chicago increasingly 'bike-friendly,' but still has miles to go on Black Crime and Violence Plagued South, West sides - Chicago is looking for miles of bullet proof plexi-glass to line the sides of the bike routes

On  the 11th floor of City Hall, as a meeting of the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council wrapped up, community activist Deloris Lucas was asked what the city has done to bring bike routes and bike-sharing to her impoverished neighborhood on the Far South Side.

She tilted her head to one side, pursed her lips and paused for a long moment.

"You ready for my answer?" asked Lucas, who lives in the Riverdale area in the city's southern edge. "There is no answer. ... There are no bike lanes. In some spots in my community, we don't even have sidewalks." And in her neighborhood, a Divvy bike-sharing station is nowhere to be found.

A Tribune analysis found the city's expanded Divvy bike-sharing program continues to skew toward white or integrated neighborhoods and the build-out of next-generation "protected" bike lanes—those set off by barriers or extra road space for greater safety—still does not reach many low- and middle-income neighborhoods that are predominantly African-American, such as Roseland, West Pullman and Riverdale, or majority Latino, such as Belmont Cragin and Archer Heights.

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