You may have noticed that on Monday Streetsblog Chicago ran a writeup of the recent community meeting about the Moving Archer Forward plan to help make the southwest-northwest diagonal street more walkable. Now, I don't mean to turn this publication into The Archer Avenue Daily News, but Monday there was another incident on that roadway that calls for more discussion.
As SBC readers know, Archer and Kedzie avenues in the Brighton Park neighborhood are crash-prone streets. According to Chicago Department of Transportation at a November 2025 community meeting, in the previous five years these corridors had seen 2,425 traffic crashes, with 653 people injured, and seven deaths. This accounted for 34 percent of traffic injuries in the community, and 41 percent of the crash deaths. In addition, Archer on the Southwest Side has seen five pedestrian and bike fatalities since 2020, and most of the victims were seniors.
In response to these numbers, and after two community meetings and feedback from some 500 residents, Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th) approved CDOT's proposal for Safe Streets projects on Archer and Kedzie in the Brighton Park. This still-under-construction initiative on Archer is adding turn lanes, pedestrian infrastructure, bus islands, and protected bike lanes.
Like any corridor reconstruction project, this work has caused some headaches for residents and merchants, which are amplified by a massive utility project on Archer southwest of Rockwell Avenue. But in the end, the street remixes will make Kedzie and Archer safer and more efficient for all road users by calming and better organizing traffic.
Some Brighton Park residents are up in arms about the AARP-endorsed "four-to-three conversion" street remix, and the conversion of some on-street car parking. Unfortunately, some right-leaning political groups and individuals are trying to harness locals' understandable frustration with the half-finished streetscape on Archer to win votes. I've nicknamed this faction the "Make Archer Great Again" posse – read about their sometimes-Trump-friendly activities here.
Since early December, the Archer project opponents, who call themselves the "Archer Guardians" have held weekly protests on Mondays during the evening rush in front of Ald. Ramirez's office, 3868 S. Archer Ave. However, they're usually outnumbered by counter-protesters, most of them Southwest Side residents, who support the project.
On February 16, frequent demonstrator Claudia Zuno announced she's running against Ramirez for alder on an anti-Archer project platform. She's gotten full-throated support from the Urban Center, a pro-charter school lobbying group run by disgraced ex-UNO Charters CEO and Trump apologist Juan Rangel. UC has helped promote the protests with mass texts and press releases.
But there's a tragic irony to the opponents holding their weekly protests against a Safe Streets project at that location. In February 2024, just to the west of the 12th Ward office at the six-way intersection of Archer, Pershing, and Rockwell avenues, the speeding driver of a large vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Streetsblog is working on getting more details about what happened.
Last month there was more evidence of the need to make Archer safer. On Tuesday, February 10, Mayeli Colmenero-Garcia posted the following on a Brighton Park Facebook discussion group.
The Archview Restaurant is at 3480 S. Archer Ave., less than a mile northeast of the rally area, and a few blocks northeast of the current project area. If that stretch had protected bike lanes, the barrier might have kept the trucker from coming into contact with Colmenero-Garcia's son. Thankfully, it does not appear that he was badly injured, but obviously it's terrible that his bicycle was destroyed.
Then on Monday, just before noon, less than a month after the Archview collision, there was yet another incident where a hit-and-run driver struck a vulnerable road user, and once again it happened at Archer/Pershing/Rockwell. According to sources, afterwards the victim was able to walk, but was taken to a hospital to get checked out.
Ald. Ramirez provided the following statement about this latest incident.
Perversely, Archer project opponents argued on Facebook that this latest scary incident is evidence that protected bike lanes don't actually protect people. These included real estate agent Julie Sawicki and protest co-organizer Eva Villalobos, a former pro-charter school CPS board candidate whose campaign received tens of thousands of dollars from Urban Center.
I responded to Sawicki via the SBC account. "What bike lanes?" I wrote. "They don't really exist yet. But in the places where there is concrete protection already, it would be helpful if protesters like you didn’t park their cars curbside so that people can ride their bikes curbside as intended. But that will become a lot more obvious after the paint [and posts and curbs are] installed in a few weeks."
Oddly, Villalobos reported that she actually did park her car properly in the "floating" parking lane. However, she said one of the police officers, who attend the dueling rallies every week to help keep the peace, told her to move her car near the curb, blocking the bike lane.
Archer project supporter and lifelong Brighton Park resident Gil Campos was at the rally that day and confirmed Villalobos' story. He said an officer told a couple of the opponents and Campos "that the way you park, that the bikes share the lane with the parked cars, that the bikes have to go around the parked cars and then go back into the lane." He added, "They have to go back in after the island. I was trying to explain to him that, no, the cars have to go behind the island and leave the bike lane open, and he said no."
"Weird," I responded to Villalobos. "Well, as I said, the current situation doesn't include infrastructure to keep drivers from parking in the bikeways. And it's not yet clear where they are supposed to park, to the extent that even the police are confused about it. So, again, it's not a big deal that motorists aren't parking in the new parking lane yet."
Here it's good to reference my November 2023 article about a protected bike lane project on Clark Street next to Graceland Cemetery in Lakeview and Uptown. I noted that, while lots of drivers were parking curbside in the half-finished bike lanes, once the posts and curbs were installed, they would learn to park correctly. And that's pretty much exactly what happened.
"Again, the new [Archer] street layout is going to make a lot more sense (and be much harder to protest) when CDOT finishes the work this spring," I concluded in my exchange with Villalobos. "All this to say, your story about the CPD further undermines your claim, 'The bike lanes and barriers ARE there and they aren't working.' The project obviously isn't completed enough for anyone to judge whether or not it's working."
That said, there's there's one thing that pro- and anti-Archer traffic safety project folks can probably agree on. Along with the utilities work, the semi-completed street makeover is currently causing dangers and annoyances for various road users. So as soon as it's warm enough to start laying down thermoplastic for crosswalks and bike lanes, CDOT needs to promptly put a bow on this initiative.
After that, Southwest Siders will finally start to understand how the new street is supposed to function. And I predict enough 12th Ward residents will like what they see that aldermanic candidate Zuno's campaign promise to "remove obstructive bike lanes and concrete barriers on Kedzie and Archer" will become a non-starter.
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 of the dueling Archer rallies, 12/8/25, here.
Check out our article about Round 2, 12/15/25, here.
Read SBC's coverage of Round 3, 12/22/25, here.
Read our article about Round 4, 12/29/25 here.
Check our post about Round 5, 1/5/26 here.
Take a look at our assessment of Round 6, 1/12/26, here.
Read SBC's post about Round 7, 1/19/26, here.
Take a gander at our article about Round 8, 1/26/26, here.
Check out our article that mentions Round 10, 2/9/26, here.
Peruse out writeup of Round 11, 2/16/26, here.
Read our article about Round 12, 2/23/26, here.
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– John Greenfield, editor
