As you might expect thanks to yesterday's gorgeous weather, the vibe was good at the 13th round of weekly dueling rallies for and against the Archer Avenue traffic safety project rallies in Brighton Park in the 12th Ward. Or at least that was the case according to proponent Alfredo Villadares Jr., who's lived just south of the project area in Gage Park for 37 years.
"Yesterday's Safety Rally was a blast!" Villadares wrote me. "There were approximately 12-15 people on the Safe Streets supporter side and only five people protesting the project. Of those people, only two weren't part of the Archer Avengers." That's his nickname for the Archer Guardians opposition group, which has a video of a pro-charter school rally on its webpage.
"The ride we held afterward was awesome as well," Villadares added. "The temperature was ideal for a bike ride! We rode down Archer to Chinatown Square and hung out for a bit. Next week, if weather permits, we will be hosting another group ride."
The weather was gloomier today, and so was the mood at today's monthly Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety meeting at City Hall. The hearing consisted of almost nothing but grievances about the Archer initiative from residents, business owners, and/or political foes of 12th Ward representative Ald. Julia Ramirez, some of whom were at Monday's protest. Ramirez, who's not a member of the committee, showed up at today's event because. She'd heard that project opponents would be testifying, even though the committee had no items in its agenda addressing Archer.
The project supporters usually outnumber the anti- folks at the Brighton Park rallies. But the opponents were well represented today, with a dozen or so of them showing up as a group to make public comments at the committee meeting. I was told that pro-Safe Streets folks only heard about the opponents' plans to testify yesterday afternoon, too late in the game for the boosters to take off from work and provide positive testimony at the hearing.
Here it's important to point out the political backdrop of the organized opposition to the Archer initiative. Ald. Ramirez, a progressive, signed off the Chicago Department of Transportation's proposal for an AARP-endorsed "four-to-three conversion" street redesign. The half-completed project will eventually include turn lanes, pedestrian safety infrastructure, bus boarding islands, and protected bike lanes, make the street safer and more efficient for all road users.
But some neighbors and merchants are understandably upset about the ongoing construction, and other are opposed to the "road diet" and conversion of some curbside car parking spaces. Some right-leaning organizations and people have been taking advantage of the situation to try to win votes, so I call them the "Make Archer Great Again" (MAGA) posse.
Last month, Immigration crackdown supporter Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) showed up to the Traffic Safety Committee to rail against the Archer project (located outside of his district) and CDOT's Complete Streets initiatives in general. I'll discuss the conservative background of other anti-Archer folks in a bit.
That's not to say that the all the complaints voiced during today's public comment period were unreasonable. For example, some Brighton Park merchants said they've lost business because of more traffic congestion and fewer curbside parking spaces.
However, research indicates that converting on-street parking to protected lanes can correlate with higher sales for small businesses, since the new facilities attract non-big box store shoppers. It's also important to remember that the Archer remix is still a work in progress, as is a massive utility project just southwest of the rally area, which deserves at least some of the blame for traffic jams and parking shortages.
Other commenters expressed concern that the Archer project is slowing down first responders. While that's a common worry from neighbors when protected bike lanes are installed, video evidence and statements from the Chicago Fire Department indicate there aren't any major problems. That's not surprising, because PBLs don't take up any more road space than parked cars.
One person at today's hearing said they were worried about a more walk/bike/transit-friendly Archer becoming a magnet for gentrification. Again, almost all of the supporters who show up to the weekly rally have said they're from the area, and some of them are lifelong residents, not gentrifiers. And Chicago's goal should be to have safe street designs in all neighborhoods, so that a Complete Streets road makeover won't particularly attract newcomers.
But the comments of anti-Archer protest co-organizer Eva Villalobos at the Traffic Safety meeting deserve special attention. In 2024 she ran for the CPS board on a pro-charter school platform, which helps explain why she came across today as a seasoned public speaker. Her campaign received over $25,000 from the pro-charter lobbying group Urban Center, founded by perennial candidate Paul Vallas and run by disgraced ex-UNO Charters CEO Juan Rangel.
Rangel wrote a flattering Tribune op-ed about Trump after the last election. Urban Center has promoted the Archer opposition with press releases and mass texts. And last month, when frequent Archer demonstration attendee Claudia Zuno announced she's running against Ramirez for alder on an anti-Archer Safe Streets platform, Rangel gave her campaign full-throated support.
Villalobos, also a Zuno supporter, aimed her comments at today's hearing directly at the candidate's opponent. Early in her speech Villalobos said accusatorially to Ramirez, "You live half a block away from the office and yet you still drive there," implying that it was hypocritical for the alder to support a sustainable transportation project.
"I'm very proud to be born and raised a half a block from where my office is," Ramirez, who recently returned from maternity leave, later told me. She said that while she often walks to the 12th Ward headquarters, "there have been moments where, as an alderman, I have to make different events or I have to rush to City Hall, so I do have my car with me in certain instances." For example, she said yesterday she had her new infant with her at work, and had to go to an event immediately afterwards with the child and baby gear.
By coincidence, committee chair and sustainable transportation advocate Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) was at home today taking care of a new arrival. If he had been at City Hall for the hearing, perhaps he wouldn't have allowed things to become so heated.
"You have the audacity to claim that you do this with transparency when you have always put us to the back," Villalobos said to Ramirez during her comments. "You went ahead and listened to a nonprofit." This might refer the the community group Southwest Collective, which helped spread the word about public input opportunities for the Archer plan.
"You went ahead and listened to CDOT, incompetent CDOT, that could not even answer questions last month," Villalobos continued. "You have a responsibility to listen to your residents. You're not here for your own personal accord. We put you here!... You need to realize that you're going to be out of here. Nobody wants you here."
Nothing political at all there, huh?
After a tangent in which Villalobos accused Mayor Johnson of not caring about police, she went on to claim, "There's a whole bunch of us, Archer Guardians, who are being threatened." Again, I'm not sure what she was talking about here.
"We have businesses who are being harassed," Villalobos said. This probably refers to Archer project supporters who reportedly politely requested that merchants take down the "2 Lanes Not 1" signs the opponents asked the them to put up. "And yet who is advocating for them. Not our alderwoman. She's just there to say yes to what the mayor wants. And we're tired and done with it. We want to stop this. And it starts with you."
The large number of her political allies cheered and applauded.
After the meeting, Ramirez told me she recently met with six business owners to hear their concerns. Their establishments are mostly located on the north side of Archer between Kedzie and Sacramento, where parking has been converted. "They feel like it's because of a lack of parking that their businesses have lost sales," she said. "I did share with them that I have a meeting with the heads of [CDOT] and Mayor Johnson, and I wanted to follow up with them on Tuesday to let them know how that meeting went. I'm trying to figure out timeline and everything that's on the table, and I want to be able to present to them all the options we have."
I asked the alder for her response to all the negative feedback she received today. "There is a stark difference of certain people who want to direct their attacks about me on a personal level, and I think politically," she replied. "And I noticed today that there are businesses that want to feel heard. So I made sure that I provided time there after the meeting to the folks that I'm mostly concerned about, and not the folks who are politically trying to run a campaign against me."
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.
Take a look at our post about Round 13, 3/2/26, here.
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