Fulton Market Association Executive Director Roger Romanelli is well-known to longtime Streetsblog Chicago readers as a resident of suburban Hillside who often intervenes in urban sustainable transportation matters. He's usually on the wrong side of these issues, with a decidely car-centric point of view. Most notoriously, his tireless lobbying against the City's Ashland bus rapid transit proposal helped get that project shelved.
Romanelli's latest quest is to put the brakes on the Chicago Department of Transportation's plans for a Complete Streets makeover of Grand Avenue between Damen and Ogden aveneus in West Town, slated for construction this year.
CDOT cut the ribbon on the first phase of the road redesign project, a 1.2-mile stretch of Grand between Chicago (about 2900 W.) and Damen avenues, in July 2024. According to the department, since then, there have been zero severe crashes on the corridor, compared to an average of four in previous years; traffic injuries have dropped by 13 percent; and bike ridership increased by 52 percent.
The next mile from Damen to Ogden will include pedestrian improvements such as wider sidewalks, raised crosswalks, pedestrian islands, and signal upgrades. There will also be bus boarding islands and protected bike lanes. CDOT says the result will be a safer more efficient corridor for all road users, which is backed up by the stats on the previous stretch.
But Romanelli and his allies are up in arms about the conversion of some driving and parking space on Grand east of Damen to make room for the sustainable transportation features. They've argued that there wasn't enough public input on the project. However, the transportation department held a well-attended public hearing in May 2023, and then another one that June, sharing plans that were revised to reflect the previous community feedback.
In November 2025, Romanelli and his posse showed up to a CTA board meeting to make a rather disingenuous counter-proposal. Instead of a road diet with protected bike lanes, they called for painted bus-bike lanes, similar to what already exists on Chicago Avenue, only three blocks to the north. The anti-PBL folks returned to the transit hearing the following month to repeat their pitch. But it's obvious these folks are less concerned with speeding up buses on Grand than making sure driving there doesn't become a little less convenient.
A bus in one of the painted, sporadically enforced, bus lanes on Chicago Avenue bus lanes west of Ashland, looking east. Photo: Steven Vance
The Grand Safe Streets opponents have held regular meetings since then. I've been told that at least one was attended by Eva Villalobos, a former CPS board candidate who co-organizes weekly protests against the under-construction Archer Avenue traffic safety project in Brighton Park.
Last Sunday I saw a flier for a rally against the Grand plan that Romanelli and his cohorts were planning a "rally" today, Thursday March 5, at 5 p.m. at Grand and Noble avenues. I announced on social media I planned to cycle by it on my way to this evenings's public meeting on the Portage Park Neighborhood Bikeway Network, 6 p.m. at the Portage Park Senior Center, 4001 N. Long Ave. I invited SBC readers to join me for my ride.
In retrospect, that was a tactical error on my part, because I'm told Romanelli freaked out and rescheduled his "rally" (actually a press conference) for Wednesday night. But, honestly, time would have been tight to make it to Portage Park, so I was only planning to roll by and snap a few photos, not stage a counter-protest, which isn't Streetsblog's role anyway.
At any rate, Romanelli's event was a success, in that crews from stations like ABC, NBC, and Fox showed up and helped amplify the so-called "Grand Avenue Committee" message that they're trying to "Save Grand." "What we're asking for is not to make a big mistake," Golden Triangle home furnishings store co-owner Douglas Van Tress told ABC.
Alliance Bakery owner Peter Rios also voiced some understandable concerns to the network about the conversion of on-street parking. But data indicates that converting curbside parking spots to protected lanes is generally good for business.
To its credit, ABC did a fairly balanced report on the issue, thanks to quick thinking by James Anderson from the advocacy group Chicago, Bike Grid Now! He told me this morning that he randomly encountered the anti-Complete Streets news conference while biking to another destination, and proactively asked the network if he could provide a counterpoint.
"People who are against what's been decided shouldn't be able to have veto power," Anderson said, referencing the two prior public meetings. He added that the opponents' painted bus-bike lane counterproposal is a non-starter. "I try to avoid Chicago Avenue when I can because the bike lane is a bus lane. I don't want to get in the way of buses. I don't want to have a CTA bus breathing down my shoulder."
ABC also gets credit for, in effect, showing that the Grand Avenue Committee claim that City officials won't meet with them to discuss the project doesn't hold water. Local Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) and his staff "have been in regular correspondence with neighbors over the last few weeks, with no requested follow up from concerned neighbors," stated a ward representative for the TV segment. Romanelli's crew admitted that they refused to convene with La Spata after he said it was too late in the game to completely overhaul the project.
This morning, Anderson emailed me with more info on what went down that evening. He said a couple of other bike riders stumbled upon the presser, and there were also a couple of 1st and 27th Ward aldermanic hopefuls present.
"Roger said there should be a meeting, that the Smith Park meeting in 2023 wasn’t enough – even though there was a huge crowd, and all sides were heard," Anderson said. "He said there should be compromise, although his idea of compromise is six lanes for cars and nothing for anybody else."
Anderson said that after the news conference, he told ABC, "I like Roger, but everything he said was nonsense." The advocate added, "There were meetings, but eventually you have to make decisions and proceed. The status quo should not always have veto power through endless meetings."
Check out CDOT's website about the Grand Avenue project here.
Here are the links for the ABC, NBC, and Fox reports.
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