This post is sponsored by The Bike Lane.
I'm not going to lie. There are definitely some perks to living in an part of Chicago where there are lots of sustainable transportation advocates, and the alderpersons are generally very walk/bike/transit-friendly.
Check out the Chicago Department of Transportation's Mid Northeast Project Area map, covering the nine-square mile area between Foster (5200 N.) and Diversey (2800 N.) avenues, the Chicago River, and Lake Michigan. It shows existing, in-progess, and upcoming bikeways some or all of the North Center, Lakeview, Uptown, Lincoln Square, and Edgewater community areas.
As you can see, there's starting to be quite dense network of bikeways, starting to approach the vision of advocacy groups like the Active Transportation Alliance and Chicago Bike Grid Now!, an influential grassroots group. Of course, the nature of these facilities varies from off-street trails, to concrete-protected bike lanes, to Neighborhood Greenway side-street routes, to paint-only lanes on main streets, which some cyclists disparagingly call "door-me lanes."
Bur here are some of notable, generally praiseworthy recent projects in the Mid Northeast Project Area, with links to CDOT webpages and Streetsblog Chicago coverage.
• Winnemac Avenue (5030 N.) from Damen Avenue (2000 W.) to the Lakefront Trail, completed. (CDOT webpage, Streetsblog coverage – you're looking at it)
• Grace Street (3800 N.) from Campbell Avenue (2500 W.) to the LFT, construction scheduled for this fall. (CDOT webpage, Streetsblog coverage)
• Wellington Avenue (3000 N.) from Leavitt Street (2200 W.) to the LFT, construction doesn't to be scheduled yet. (CDOT webpage, Streetsblog coverage)
Proactive advocacy from civilians has been key to this part of town evolving into a local cycling Mecca. Examples include Bike Grid Now's 100-person ride to advocate for now-under-construction protected bike lanes on Clark Street from Montrose Avenue (4400 N.) to Winnemac in Uptown.
Some of the credit also goes to the pro-sustainable transportation alderpersons who represent parts of the Mid Northeast Project Area. These include Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd), Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), Ald. Bennett Lawson (44th), Ald. Angela Clay (46th), Ald. Matt Martin (47th), and Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th).
It's also necessary to point out that the difference in bikeway density in different sections of Chicago also involves some equity issues. The wards are relatively compact here, which means discretionary aldermanic "menu" money for infrastructure isn't spread as thin as in larger districts on the South and West sides. And many lower-income and working-class people in underserved communities may have less spare time to attend community meetings.
To its credit, in recent years CDOT has been more proactive about doing outreach to win support from locals in these areas through its Neighborhood Bike Network initiative. That work has been bearing fruit with lots of recently installed bikeways on the West Side, and in-progress projects like protected bike lanes on Kedzie (3200 W.) and Archer Avenue (diagonal) on the Near Southwest Side.
On the other hand, many parts of the Far Southwest and Northwest Sides that have virtually no bikeways aren't particularly economically disadvantaged. But this absence does correlate nearly perfectly with areas with high numbers of Trump voters.
But I digress. Let's discuss some of the features of one of Chicago's nicest new lower-stress crosstown bike routes, the Winnemac Neighborhood Greenway. I'd throw in "Argyle" in its name as well because roughly a third the roughly three-mile corridor between Lake Michigan is on Argyle Street (5030 N.)
There was already a Neighborhood Greenway between the river and Winnemac Park (located between Leavitt and Damen). However, an eastbound contraflow lane between California (2800 W.) and Rockwell (2600 W.) avenues is currently missing due to street repaving, but will likely we restriped soon.
The new greenway section east of Damen completes the mostly low-stress route to and from the lake. The design converted Winnemac between Clark Street (about 1530 W.here) to a one-way eastbound street for drivers, with a contraflow lane to legalize west bound riding by cyclists.
As you can see in the long video below, as long as you know where the itenerary jogs, it's a fairly seemless route. CDOT installed sinusoidal, bike-friendly "sinusoidal" speed humps, and the posted speed limit was lowered to 20 moh. Families seems to agree it's a relatively low-street corridor, since I saw a few biking with young kids.
What do you think of the new greenway? Let us know if the comment section.
Do you appreciate Streetsblog Chicago's paywall-free sustainable transportation reporting and advocacy? We officially ended our 2024-25 fund drive in July, but we still need another $42.5K+ to keep the (bike) lights on in 2026. We'd appreciate any leads on potential major donors or grants. And if you haven't already this year, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us continue publishing next year. Thank you!
