engineering

McDonald's Cycle Center

McDonald's Cycle Center is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand McDonald's Cycle Center rather than just read about it. In short: McDonald's Cycle Center (formerly Millennium Park Bike Station) is a facility for a Chicago Police Department Bike Patrol Group in the northeast corner of Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois. It was formerly a bicycle station for public use.

Key takeaways

McDonald's Cycle Center belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect McDonald's Cycle Center to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of McDonald's Cycle Center from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

McDonald's Cycle Center (formerly Millennium Park Bike Station) is a facility for a Chicago Police Department Bike Patrol Group in the northeast corner of Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois. It was formerly a bicycle station for public use. The city of Chicago built the center at the intersection of East Randolph Street and Columbus Drive, and opened it in July 2004. Since June 2006, it had been sponsored by McDonald's and several other partners, including city departments and bicycle advocacy organizations. The bike station, which formerly served bicycle commuters and utility cyclists, provided lockers, showers, a snack bar with outdoor summer seating, bike repair, bike rental and 300 bicycle parking spaces as of 2004. The Cycle Center was accessible by membership and day pass. It also accommodated runners and inline skaters, but now is exclusively used by a Chicago Police Department Bike Patrol Group and no longer is used by commuters. Planning for the Cycle Center was part of the larger "Bike 2010 Plan", in which the city aimed to make itself more accommodating to bicycle commuters. This plan (now replaced by the "Bike 2015 Plan") included provisions for front-mounted two-bike carriers on Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) buses, permitting bikes to be carried on Chicago 'L' trains, installing numerous bike racks and creating bicycle lanes in streets throughout the city. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area's other mass transit providers, Metra and Pace, have developed increased bike accessibility. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was an advocate of the plan, noting it was also an environmentally friendly effort to cut down on traffic. McDonald's controversially claimed that, since it was providing a healthier menu and fostering grade school physical education, (in an effort to help its customers improve their health) sponsoring bicycle and exercise activity in the park augments the company's other initiatives. Environmentalists, urban planners, and cycling enthusiasts around the world expressed interest in the Cycle Center, and wanted to emulate what they saw as a success story in urban planning and transit-oriented development. Pro-cycling and environmentalist journalists in publications well beyond the Chicago metropolitan area described the Cycle Center as exemplary, impressive, unique and ground-breaking.

History and background

Lying between Lake Michigan to the east and the Loop to the west, Grant Park has been Chicago's "front yard" since the mid-19th century. Its northwest corner, (north of Monroe Street and the Art Institute, east of Michigan Avenue, south of Randolph Street, and west of Columbus Drive), had been Illinois Central rail yards and parking lots until 1997. It was then made available for development by the city as Millennium Park. According to 2007 data released in 2008, Millennium Park trailed only Navy Pier as a Chicago tourist attraction. The Millennium Park bicycle center was designed by David Steele of the architectural firm Muller & Muller, which won a $120,000 contract to design the station by Memorial Day 2004, and commenced the design in August 2003. This was at a time when bike stations were in place or being planned in several U.S. cities, such as Denver, and, in California, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Long Beach and Palo Alto. The station was developed as part of "Bike 2010 Plan" discussions, an initiative from Mayor Daley to promote Chicago as the most bicycle-friendly city in the United States. From the outset the plan was to have separate operators for the Cycle Center's rental and repair services, as well as its coffee and juice bar. The bike station had originally been planned to occupy 10,000 square feet (929 m2) and cost $2 million, but when completed, the Cycle Center was 16,448 square feet (1,528 m2) and located on a larger exterior plaza. The final two-floor design cost $3.2 million. A federal grant from the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration, for projects that lessen traffic congestion and improve air quality, funded its construction. The Cycle Center was completed in June 2004 and the official opening occurred on July 19, 2004—the Monday following the Millennium Park's grand opening gala. Attendees for the ribbon cutting included Mayor Daley, CDOT Commissioner Miguel d'Escoto, Chicago Park District General Superintendent Timothy Mitchell, and representatives from the Chicago Bike Federation, Public Building Commission, Chicago Police Department, and Chicago City Council. Managed by the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), the Cycle Center is on the fifth and sixth floors of the Millennium Park parking garage.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with McDonald's Cycle Center

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what McDonald's Cycle Center claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to McDonald's Cycle Center before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about McDonald's Cycle Center ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of McDonald's Cycle Center

In research: McDonald's Cycle Center appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses McDonald's Cycle Center in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: McDonald's Cycle Center is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2004 establishments in Illinois, Buildings and structures completed in 2004, Cycling in Chicago, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for McDonald's Cycle Center outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study McDonald's Cycle Center in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what McDonald's Cycle Center means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain McDonald's Cycle Center out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is McDonald's Cycle Center in simple terms?

Why does McDonald's Cycle Center matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study McDonald's Cycle Center?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on McDonald's Cycle Center.