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All is quiet on New Year’s Day. 5th and final part of SBC’s Bike Lane Fest 2024: South Side

Protected bike lane (presumably CDOT will add physical protection in the near future) on Halsted at 68th Street in Englewood, looking south.

This post is sponsored by Keating Law Offices.

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 3: Portage Park, Irving Park, North Center, Avondale, Logan Square, Hermosa, Humboldt Park here

Check out Part 4: West Side here.

I've been everywhere, man...
Of travel I've had my share, man
I've been everywhere

With all due respect to Johnny Cash, this year, I once again saw a heck of a lot our diverse city while doing field work for SBC's Bike Lane Fest 2024. I traveled from Rogers Park, to Austin, to South Chicago, this time working my way counter-clockwise around the map. I wrapped up my journey with a New Year's Day work-cation (I probably would have been riding my bike somewhere that day anyway), covering all of the city's new bikeways south of the Stevenson Expressway.

If you've been following my exploits for the past month, you know that my mission was to check out every bike lane the Chicago Department of Transportation installed in 2024, or is currently "underway." My guide was the agency's current Planned Bike Projects spreadsheet. While I didn't ride the whole length of every route, I at least dropped by for a few blocks to get a sense of what the facility is like.

New bikeways discussed in this post, with community area boundaries shown. Red = non-protected bike lanes, green = protected bike lanes, blue = Neighborhood Greenway side street route, black = "shared lane markings." Image: John Greenfield via Google Maps

The first day of 2025 in Chicago was brisk and windy, at 31F with a 16F "Real Feel." While I was properly bundled up, I had a lot of ground to cover, and was happy to get a break from the cold on transit now and then. So I rode the Red Line from its Wilson station, near my home in Uptown, to the 35th-Sox Park stop to start my journey.

To give you a better sense of how the new bikeways shown my Google Maps screenshot fit in with the existing bike network, here's the section of the city covered in this post, as shown on CDOT's 2024 Chicago Bike Map, released earlier in the year, before many or most of the 2024 bikeways were completed. Blue = bike lanes (black outlines mean they're protected lanes), green = Neighborhood Greenway side street routes, gray = off-street trails.

After checking out bikeways on the Mid South Side, I caught the Red Line again at 69th Street and took it to the 95th/Dan Ryan station. After riding on Far South and Far Southeast Side facilities, I caught the Metra Electric Line from its 93rd Street (South Chicago) stop to the 59th Street station in Hyde Park, right next door to an old friend's January 1 gathering.

There I loaded up on collard greens and black-eyed peas, traditionally eaten on New Year's Day for good luck as a symbol of folding money and coins. (Hopefully, my doing so will help with Streetsblog Chicago's current fundraising efforts.) From there I headed north to inspect a couple more protected lane sites on the Mid South Side, and then caught the Red Line home again from Sox Park to Uptown.

New Year's Day bike lane reconnaissance fuel. Photo: John Greenfield

Here are some few of thoughts about what I saw this year's travels:

• Once again, it's obvious that the CDOT bike and pedestrian program, particularly Complete Streets program manager David Smith, and the contractors who did the physical labor, put in a lot of work. In 2023, they installed over 50 miles of bikeways, including 27 miles of new and upgraded protected bike lanes, plus 18 miles of Neighborhood Greenways, with 90 percent of the facilities fitting in those two "low-stress bikeway" categories. I'm guessing this year's numbers are at least as large.

• But, like last year, there's a quality-over-quantity issue at play. Now, there were a few 2024 projects that caught my attention, like the nearly complete Berwyn Avenue Neighborhood Greenway from the North Shore Channel Trail to Lake Michigan. The protected bike lanes on Grand Avenue in West Town are also pretty nice. And, while I didn't ride the entire route, if the new protected lanes on Halsted Street from 59th Street to Pershing Road in the Englewood and New City Community areas, 2.5 miles, are in decent shape, that's an impressive achievement. However, there also seemed to be a lot of short snippets of PBLs, at most four blocks at time. In the short run, that doesn't do that much to make biking safer and more pleasant for anyone, and probably annoys some neighbors, who may wonder what's the point of reconfiguring the car parking for such a short bikeway. I'd suggest CDOT instead focus on installing longer stretches of PBLs at one time. Dearborn Street downtown, Augusta Boulevard in West Town, Belmont Avenue in Avondale, and 55th Street in Hyde Park are good examples of that strategy.

• Similarly, it would be great to have miles-long raised bike lanes, like the ones that are common in cycling Meccas like Amsterdam and Copenhagen. But the short segments of these installed on Chicago and Laramie avenues in Austin, and Commercial Avenue in South Chicago (see the latter at the end of this article), kind of seem like interesting demonstration projects, rather than particularly useful bikeways. So longer-distance raised bike lanes would be good. I'd also recommend placing the bikeway midway between sidewalk and street level, like the one shown below from Copenhagen, which helps prevent conflicts between pedestrians, bike riders, and drivers.

A multi-level street design on Copenhagen's Nørrebrogade, separating pedestrians, bike riders, and drivers. Photo: John Greenfield

All right, enough of my yappin'. Below is my mostly South Side bikeway gallery, with all photos and videos by yours truly. The official community areas covered include – deep breath – Lower West Side (Pilsen), McKinley Park, Brighton Park, Back of the Yards, Chicago Lawn, West Englewood, Englewood, Roseland, Calumet Heights, South Chicago, Washington Park, and Douglas.

From here on, I'll let the images do most of the talking. Thanks for coming along on Streetsblog Chicago's Bike Lane Fest 2024 ride!

Bike lanes on Western Avenue over Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal bridge in McKinley Park and the Lower West Side

Video of riding north on Western from 33rd Street over the bridge. CDOT plans to install curbs next to the bike lanes to protect cyclists from drivers. And obviously the bridge pavement needs some attention! Read more about the project here.

Looking north on Western at 34th Street, towards the bridge.

Neighborhood Greenway on Rockwell Avenue in Brighton Park

Looking south on Rockwell towards Archer Avenue.

NG on Montgomery Avenue towards Kelly High School in Brighton Park

Looking west on Montgomery at Rockwell, towards Kelly Park, right before the high school.

Non-protected bike lanes on Kedzie Avenue in Brighton Park

Looking south on Kedzie near 44th Street.

Non-protected lanes on Damen Avenue in New City

Looking north towards 47th/Damen.

Protected lanes on Damen (south of 51st Street) in New City

Protected lane on Damen, looking south.

Non-protected bike lanes on 63rd Street in Chicago Lawn and West Englewood

Looking east on 63rd at Winchester Avenue.

Protected bike lanes on Halsted Street in Englewood and Canaryville

Protected bike lane (presumably CDOT will add physical protection, ideally concrete curbs, in the near future) on Halsted, looking south.

Shared lane marking on Michigan Avenue in Roseland

Looking west at Michigan and 100th Street.

Non-protected bike lanes on 93rd Street in Calumet Heights

93rd Street, looking east.

Commercial Avenue raised bike lanes in South Chicago

Looking north on Commercial from 92nd.

Non-protected bike lane on 91st Street in South Chicago

Looking east on 91st.

Protected lanes on Ellsworth Drive in Washington Park ("underway")

Ellsworth, through Washington Park, looking north here, has been repaved, but no PBLs have been added.

Protected bike lanes on 31st Street in Douglas

31st at Prairie Avenue, looking west.
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