Check out Part 1: Uptown, Lincoln Square, West Ridge, Rogers Park, Edgewater here
Check out Part 2: Lincoln Square, Irving Park, and Albany Park here.
Check out Part 5: South Side here.
Howdy, Streetsblog readers. Here's hoping you had a fun holiday season and are ready to get 2025 off to a good start. As you may have noticed, Streetsblog Chicago's Bike Lane Fest 2024 did not actually wrap up before the giant pierogi dropped in Whiting, Indiana earlier this week. However, I have completed all the necessary fieldwork, from Rogers Park, to Austin, to the city's South Chicago community, on New Year's Day. So let's plow ahead, with the goal of finishing this project by the end of this very short work week. So this discussion of mostly West Side facilities will be the second-to-last post, followed by the South Side on Friday.
If you've been following this series, you know that I created the above interactive Google Map of every bike route the Chicago Department of Transportation has "installed" last, or is now "underway," according to the department's Planned Bike Projects spreadsheet.
I've made my way counter-clockwise around our city, gradually checking out every single new bike lane, protected bike lane (PBL), and Neighborhood Greenway (NG) side street route that SBC hasn't already covered. I'm not riding the whole length of all the bikeways, but instead attempting to get a feel for what they're like.
The following gallery includes facilites I checked out last Saturday (with a bit of help from SBC's Cameron Bolton), mostly on the West Side. This included – deep breath – Austin, Humboldt Park, West Garfield Park, East Garfield Park, North Lawndale, Little Village, the Lower West Side (basically Pilsen), the Near West Side, the Loop, and the Near Northside. What follows is a brief roundup of what I saw. This lists also includes links to previous posts about new bikeways within this zone. All photos and video below are by yours truly, except for one by Cameron.
Bike lanes on Chicago Avenue in Austin with some (sort of?) protected intersections
Bike lanes on Laramie Avenue in Austin with some (sort of?) protected intersections
Bus/bike lanes on Chicago Avenue in West Town
Protected bike lanes on Grand Avenue in West Town (Read Sharon Hoyer's earlier writeup of the project here.)
Concrete upgrade to Franklin Avenue PBLs in Humboldt Park (Read Sharon Hoyer's earlier writeup of the project here.)
Non-protected bike lanes on Kedzie Avenue
Non-protected and protected bike lanes on Homan Avenue in East Garfield Park and North Lawndale
Protected lanes on the Keeler Avenue bridge over the Eisenhower Expressway in West Garfield Park
Concrete upgrade to Douglas Boulevard PBLs in North Lawndale (Read Sharon Hoyer's earlier writeup of the project here.)
Protected bike lanes on 16th Street in North Lawndale
Non-protected bike lanes on Central Park Avenue in Little Village
Non-protected bike lanes on Kedzie Avenue in Little Village
Neighborhood Greenway on 24th Street in Little Village
Protected bike lanes on 24th Boulevard in Little Village. (Read Lisa Phillips' earlier writeup of the project here.)
Non-protected and protected lanes on Damen Avenue on the Lower West Side (Pilsen) and the Near West Side
Semi-protected bike lanes on Jackson Street on the Near West Side
PBLs on Paulina Street on the Near West Side
Concrete upgrades on the Harrison Street PBLs on the Near West Side
Halsted Street PBLS on the Near West Side
Taylor Street protected bike lanes on the Near West Side
Protected bike lane on Canal Street on the Near West Side
PBLs on Wabash Avenue in the Loop
Clark Street PBLs on the Near North Side (Read my earlier writeup of the project here.)
Dearborn Street non-protected lanes on the Near North Side (Read my earlier writeup of the project here.)
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