Hopeful Signs in Rock Island

Because Illinois is simply more willing to fund transit and other urbanist initiatives than Iowa right now, the best urbanist improvements in the Quad Cities right now tend to be on the Illinois side.

The upcoming changes on 7th Ave (the main drag of downtown Rock Island, though not the main commercial street because the traffic is going too fast) are a good example of this.

7th Ave (which twists and turns into 5th Ave as it winds its way into Moline) is very wide right now, and it doesn't need to be. The key change appears to be that Illinois DOT recognizes this, and is going to not only narrow it but (wonder of wonders) add a bike lane to it. 

That would be a major help to bike commuters in particular, because 7th Ave is a very useful thoroughfare in this area:

The arrow here is 7th Avenue; there is bike path on the riverfront to the north, but it winds and doesn't always interact with the street grid in useful ways. Adding a bike lane on 7th means making it infinitely easier to traverse this area on a bike, especially if you're actually going somewhere in or around downtown Rock Island (like, say, the courthouse, library, city hall, or any of the restaurants or shopping). 

Will this make a big difference for me personally? Probably not immediately, since biking across the bridges that lead towards 7th Ave from Davenport is not particularly easy. But it certainly makes it more likely that now that the Government Bridge to the Arsenal is back open, I'll make my way across it once this additional work is done, and down to 7th instead of across the riverfront.