On Friday, I responded to a recent People for Bikes article alleging that Chicago is the milk carton kid among large U.S. cities who should be creating high-quality, low-stress cycling networks: missing in action.
"Chicago completed more than 30 bike projects in the past three years but its network remains largely fragmented, with only a modest six-point improvement in its overall [City Ratings] score in that same time," they wrote. "Many projects remain disconnected from other parts of the bike network."
I strongly disagree with PFB's City Ratings algorithm. Several cities with far fewer low-stress routes, lower bike mode share, and more cycling deaths per capita than Chicago got exponentially higher scores, largely because their default speed limits are 5 mph lower. Speed limits are an important bike safety factor, but not an all-encompassing one.
However, People for Bikes made a valid point that our city has lots of room for improvement when it comes to connectivity between segments of protected bike lanes, and stretches of Neighborhood Greenways.
PFB used the 0.6-mile segment of protected bike lane on diagonal Clark Street between Irving Park Road (4000) and Montrose Avenue (4400 N.), next to historic Graceland Cemetery, aka the Graceland Greenway, as an example. "A protected bike lane on Clark Street begins and ends on a high-stress road, making it difficult to connect to other parts of Chicago’s bike network."
In my response to the recent People for Bikes post, I acknowledged that was a legitimate complaint. Even though the rest of Clark nearby is a two-lane street with "marked shared lanes," that doesn't feel safe enough for "interested but concerned" potential riders. However, I noted, "CDOT has proposed extending [the PBLs] north several more blocks," 0.8 miles, to be exact, to Winnemac Avenue (5030 N.), at the south end of the Andersonville business strip.
Last Saturday, the day I ran the rebuttal, I went to the Uptown Theater community portrait event, marking the 100th anniversary of the vacant entertainment venue. The block of Broadway north of Lawrence Avenue was briefly pedestrianized for the the photo shoot. Uptown is the neighborhood the new Clark PBLs were proposed in, so I've nicknamed that project the Uptown Extension.
At the gathering, I ran into local City Council member Ald. Angela Clay (46th) and the ward's Director of Infrastructure and Development Jesse Orr. Last April, Orr led a presentation on the Uptown Extension, which he said would involve converting parking spots on one side of the street to make room for the protected lanes.
At that April hearing, Orr noted the Chicago Department of Transportation found that only 30 percent of the on-street car spots on that stretch of Clark were used on an average weekday. Therefore, replacing some of them with bike lanes wouldn't cause any major parking hardships. But convincing local residents and merchants that the change would be beneficial involved some political lifting, with ward staffers going door-to-door talking with business owners and managers.
Happily, on Saturday Orr indicated that their efforts were successful, and the Uptown Extension would become a reality soon. He and Ald. Clay weren't ready to talk on the record about the project yet, but they had already made the announcement in her newsletter, and Orr had posted about it on Bluesky.
Obviously, it shouldn't take three years to get less than a mile of protected bike lanes installed! But this is definitely a big win, not just for bike and e-scooter riders, who will be shielded from motor vehicles. In addition, people on foot will get shorter crossing distances, and the narrower mixed-traffic lanes will encourage safer driver speeds, reducing the likelihood of serious car-crashes.
You can read Orr's post above for the details of the contraction schedule, and get more info on the project website. While the work is scheduled to start today, I haven't see any changes yet this afternoon, but maybe they'll start this evening.
Obviously, this is great news for safe streets advocates. But not everybody is going to be happy about the changes. Prediction: The anonymous windshield-POV website Uptown Update, which has previously grumbled about the proposal to swap parking spots for people space, will run a new post bemoaning the decision in 3... 2... 1...
Update 8/19/25: Nailed it. The author, a cloak-and-dagger blogger who goes by the pseudonym "Uptown Girl," wrote, "[Greenfield] even called me out in the header!" In reality, I had no idea that one of the incognito inscribers at Uptown Update goes by that handle. I was simply referencing a Billy Joel song.
And I'm sure the Not In My Backyard newspaper chain Inside Publications, which has also previously denounced the project, will join the motorhead pity party as well.
Check out CDOT's webpage for the Uptown Extension here.
Read previous SBC coverage of the project and the CBGN! bike ride to support it.
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