The six-way junction of Belmont, Ashland, and Lincoln one of the North Side's most dangerous and inconvenient intersections for people on foot and bikes, recently got a little safer and more pleasant thanks to a quick-and-cheap makeover by the Chicago Department of Transportation. Eventually the improvements, done with street paint and flexible plastic posts, will be set in stone as CDOT pours concrete to create permanent sidewalk bump-outs.
The recent intersection work was done as part of the Lincoln Avenue Arterial Resurfacing project, which also included striping brand new bike lanes on Lincoln between Lakeview and Lincoln Square. The short-term fixes to the six-way junction include:
- Paint-and-post bump-outs installed at most corners: southwest (by Central Savings), south (by One Main Financial and a Divvy station), northeast (by Whole Foods), north (by a small plaza), and northwest (by several smaller storefronts.) The bump-outs help correct the skewed layout of the intersection, shorten pedestrian crossing distances, and discourage fast turns by drivers.
- Dedicated bike lanes in the intersection approach and dashed bike lanes through the intersection.
- Elimination of the left turn lanes on Lincoln, both northwest-bound and southeast-bound, to make room for the bike lanes and bump-outs.
- Elimination of left-turns from Lincoln (onto both Belmont and Ashland) and hairpin right-turns from Ashland onto Lincoln.
In the future the Lincoln Ashland Belmont Reconstruction project will completely rebuild the intersection with permanent infrastructure improvements, which are currently in Phase II (intermediate) design. Most notably, the temporary bump-outs will be rebuilt with concrete, and two new crosswalks will be added to allow pedestrians walking east-west along Belmont to traverse the intersection with a single crossing -- right now two crossings are required.
While it's great that complete streets makeovers like this are becoming increasingly common in North and Northwest Side neighborhoods that already decent places to walk and ride a bike, more of these kinds of projects are needed on the South and West sides, where most of the city's high-crash corridors are located. Read more discussion of that issue here.
