By Kalen Luciano
Luciano is a Lakeview resident and organizer with Lakeview Urbanists where he advocates for projects and policies that build more abundant housing, active transportation, and safe streets.
In the last six months of 2025, the Addison Street and Inner Lake Shore Drive intersection in Lakeview made headlines after drivers injured or killed three people on foot at or near the intersection. Here are the three cases.
• On June 21, 2025, a hit-and-run car sedan struck and killed Brendan Siddall, 26 on the 3600 block of North DuSable Lake Shore Drive.
• On November 6, 2025, an SUV Driver, 26, was cited after running a red and critically injuring Cindy Castellanos, 23, as she crossed Inner LSD at Addison.
• On December 7, a car driver was cited after striking a man, 50, crossing Inner LSD at Addison, and the victim was hospitalized in fair condition.
This is a part of a much larger safety issue along Inner Lake Shore Drive in Lakeview, which saw 171 total crashes, with 41 injuries, in the past year. These are just the reported crashes. Unfortunately, residents faced countless more close calls and minor injuries that they didn’t formally report.
The 44th and 46th ward, represented by alders Bennett Lawson and Angela Clay, respectively, made requests in the last few months to the Chicago Department of Transportation to review the corridor. However, the traffic study process is notoriously slow. With such a high number of reported crashes, CDOT has a moral responsibility to act fast to prevent future injuries and deaths on this road and across our community.
Our group, Lakeview Urbanists, created a petition to make it clear this is urgent for our community, which you can sign here. In addition to our demand to accelerate the traffic study, we also call on CDOT to implement meaningful infrastructure changes to slow drivers down and save lives.
Although the traffic study is in progress, CDOT sent some initial findings to the 46th Ward office in early January telling them that the department most likely will only consider adding more road signs and striping. That is not enough. In a recent social media post, CDOT acknowledged a well-known and well-researched fact that car crashes are not accidents. In CDOT’s own words, "No traffic-related death or serious injury is acceptable when the tools exist to prevent the conditions that lead to these tragedies."
Driver behavior is greatly influenced by road design. If we want motorists to drive responsibly, we need to design roads with traffic calming measures like curb bumpouts. These improve visibility by preventing drivers from parking too close to crosswalks; shorten crossing distances, and narrow mixed traffic lanes to slow down drivers. This can all be done at a low cost with a high return.
Substance News' recent question, "How do these stupid bumpouts make streets safer?" got a lot of smart answers.
Every day, residents in our community risk their lives walking, biking, taking transit, or driving on or across Inner Lake Shore Drive. Many people on foot and bikes have to cross it to access the lakefront, and that number will increase once CDOT completes the Grace Street Neighborhood Greenway between the lake and the river.
A slide from CDOT’s August 2025 presentation on the future Grace Greenway.
Lots of transit riders have to cross Inner LSD to catch one of the many high-ridership bus routes. And numerous drivers traverse the road to travel across the city. No one using Inner Lake Shore Drive should fear for their lives on their daily commute or trip to the park.
Beyond the human cost of physical injuries and mental trauma, these crashes have an enormous economic impact. The past year of crashes on this corridor cost victims an estimated $4.2 million in medical expenses, legal costs, and property damage. This doesn’t include an additional $16 million in estimated damages to quality of life.
We deserve a world where everyone of every ability can walk, bike, take transit, and drive without risking their lives. Let's move Chicago one step closer to achieving this goal by demanding CDOT to act now to build safe streets and implement meaningful infrastructure changes that prioritize safety for all road users.
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