If you're a sustainable transportation reporter and advocate like me, always looking for important and interesting stories about livable streets issues, the Archer Avenue traffic safety project debate is the gift that keeps on giving.
In a nutshell, this Chicago Department of Transportation initiative on Archer and Kedzie avenues in Brighton Park, approved by local Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th), has the goal of making the streets safer and more efficient for all road users. The project, currently underway, includes "four-to-three conversion" street redesigns with turn lanes for motorists, pedestrians safety infrastructure, bus boarding islands, and protected lanes for bike and e-scooter riders.
There were years of community outreach, and public input from 500-plus residents, that went into the decision to upgrade these crash-prone streets. But, in fairness, even some supporters have acknowledged more widespread publicity would have helped prevent residents from being surprised when CDOT started construction. Road work is never fun for commuters, and conditions were made worse by record-breaking snowfall last month.
That said, there's been some Machiavellian intrigue behind recent organized weekly protests against the project on Mondays from 6-8 p.m. in front of the 12th Ward office, 3868 S. Archer Ave. The backlash clearly has a lot to do with efforts to defeat Julia Ramirez, a progressive politician, in the next election, not just disagreements about street design.
As I've discussed before, recent demonstrations were co-organized by Eva Villalobos, who unsuccessfully ran for school board last year. Her campaign was backed by over $50,000 from Urban Center, a "centrist" pro-charter school lobbying group launched by ex-Chicago Public Schools chief and perennial candidate Paul Vallas. The organization is currently run by disgraced ex-UNO charter school CEO Juan Rangel.
Urban Center promoted the December 8 Archer opposition rally with mass texts and press releases that drew TV news crews. At the December 15 protest, Villalobos handed out flyers for the ThrivingChicago.com site, which not only featured anti-Safe Streets material, but also footge of a rally with people holding "More Charter Schools" signs. While WGN 9, Fox 32, and Block Club covered those events, oddly, none of them discussed the Vallas / Rangel connection.
Fortunately, proponents of the Archer and Kedzie safety project have also been showing up for the last three weekly events to hold competing rallies. Possibly thanks in part to 23F temperature that might have scared off folks who mostly commute in heated cars, there were two or three times as many boosters as naysayers last week. Ten of them I interviewed said they have roots in Brighton Park or next-door neighborhoods, to they weren't just sustainable transportation advocates just parachuting in from the North Side. But one of my Twitter followers was still skeptical.
I took a ballpark guess that around three quarters of the Archer supporters were from or lived near the neighborhood. But yesterday, I accepted this part of this person's challenge by showing up for my third rally in a row, flagging down just about all the supporters I saw, and asking what communities they were from. While it was a relatively balmy day in the forties, they once again outnumbered the opponents. I'll provide the details in a second. TLDR: To answer the first part of the Tweeter's question, 100 percent the 22 people I interviewed and/or photographed yesterday live within a couple of miles of the project area.
As for "how does that compare to the opponents?" I can't really say for sure. Amusingly, the Archer protesters were standing on some on recently built concrete islands that they claimed were ruining the neighborhood, north of the crowd of boosters. When I started politely asking opponents where they live, a woman told them not to speak with me, and a man who seemed to be an organizer insisted, "You're harassing us."
Police were standing between the two factions to keep the peace. One of the officers approached to say that if I am a project supporter, which I acknowledged I am, I needed to stay away from the other side.
Fair game, I said, and proceeded to buttonhole just about all of the dozens of safety advocates who was there. Here's a rundown in chronological order. I'd previously interviewed several of these folks at the earlier rallies, but I photographed them again as evidence of my findings.
• Denise Escobar, who declined to be photographed, lives in Little Village. "I'm here just because I think bike infrastructure's really important, and personally if it was here, I'd probably make my way around here a lot more often – it basically opens up a whole new section of the city for me."
And to wrap up this post, here'a video of what the two factions looked like when I left the event a few minutes after 6 p.m. In fairness, several of the opponents had already left by then.
And that concludes my third writeup of the Archer Avenue traffic safety project rallies in three week, and that will probably be my last time attending one for a while. But, as you can see from the above flyer, the opposition is planning three more protests this winter, so if I hear of anything unusual happening, I'll let you know.
Read CDOT's FAQ about the Archer / Kedzie traffic safety projects here.
Materials about Archer Avenue can be found here.
Materials about Kedzie Avenue can be found here.
Read Streetsblog Chicago's writeup of Round 1 here.
Check out our article about Round 2 here.
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