As I previously discussed, at Tuesday's Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety meeting, 12th Ward representative Ald. Julia Ramirez received a torrent of abuse during the lengthy public comment period. The tirades came from residents, merchants, and political enemies who called her out for signing off on the Chicago Department of Transportation's Archer Avenue traffic safety project in Brighton Park.
This initiative is controversial because it involves converting mixed-traffic and parking lanes to make room for turn lanes, pedestrian infrastructure, bus boarding islands, and protected bike lanes. And, granted, the half-finished roadway is kind of a mess right now, because CDOT hasn't yet added street markings, concrete curbs, and flexible posts to help residents navigate the new street design. It hasn't helped matters that there's a mass utility project going on just southwest of the ward office.
"This is not a city of neighborhoods or a city that works for everyone," testified a woman named Carmen at the hearing. "Currently it's only serving for the special interests that are influencing Ms. Julia Ramirez... Let me just remind you aldermen [names a few alders present] you have a choice to vote on the expansion of bike lanes. Please don't do it. It's killing businesses across the city of Chicago."
The most notable example of a business owner claiming that parking conversions for protected bike lanes forced them to close was Allan Gillman from an Ace Hardware on Milwaukee Avenue in Logan Square. But another possible factor in declining sales may have been the shop loudly playing anti-immigrant talk radio in a heavily Latino neighborhood.
"[The Chicago Department of Transportation] is basically a special interest group that's being funded basically by not the city of Chicago residents or the property tax payers like myself," Carmen insisted. "It's being funded by so-called non-for-profit organizations, OK? That is our tax money."
Obviously, that's a nonsensical, self-contradictory statement. But it's true that these shadowy organizations are bankrolling CDOT, is there any chance this Illinois Illuminati could kick Streetsblog Chicago some cash as well? (I kid.)
I imagine that after sitting through over a half hour of criticism, including understandable concerns about street redesign and construction headaches, plus tin foil hat conspiracy theories, Ald. Ramirez felt pretty exhausted. So after the meeting was over, I buttonholed one of her sustainable transportation-friendly peers who has also had to deal with pushback for a similar Complete Streets project, to ask if he had any advice for his embattled colleague.
In late 2023, Ald. Matt Martin (47th) oversaw the installtion of concrete--protected bike lanes on the 0.5 mile stretch of Clark Street, between Irving Park Road and Montrose Avenue in Lakeview and Uptown. Although, like Archer, that project involved parking conversions, the east side of the street is occupied by Graceland Cemetery, so there was little parking demand there, and the project was fairly uncontroversial.
In March 2025, when CDOT proposed extending the protected bike lanes about 0.75 miles north of Montrose to Winnemac Avenue, at the south end of the Andersonville strip in the 46th and 47th wards, Martin also supported the idea. However, this time he faced a much stronger backlash against parking conversions, because that part of Clark has more retail. That was despite the fact that the transportation department found that on an average weekday, less than 30 percent of on-street car parking spots were in use.
Still, the usual Not In My Back Yard commentators were fiercely opposed to the proposal. Inside Publications' Ronald Roenigk wrote a front-page diatrible against the idea with the alarmist headline "Privileged bike paths to spread further on Clark St., Montrose to Winnemac the next victim." Somehow, he believes bicycle (and e-scooter etc.) facilities are "privileged" but car-only routes like the Kennedy Expressway are not.
Similarly, the Uptown Update blog railed against the proposal in a post titled, "Hope You Don't Like Driving and Parking!" Is there anyone who really enjoys driving and parking in a car-clogged city like Chicago?
Ultimately, Martin and his 46th Ward colleague Ald. Angela Clay decided to move forward with the project despite the naysayers. The project is largely completed now, and while some aspects of the corridor could probably use some fine-tuning, the protected bikeway is getting good ridership, and the backlash appears to have largely subsided.
After Tuesday's committee meeting, I asked Martin what he thought was the "special sauce" that allowed this project to successfully move forward, despite some initial negativity. I hope his story will serve as a light at the end of the tunnel for Brighton Park's long-suffering alderperson. This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
John Greenfield: That was some testimony warrior today! So do you have any advice for Ald. Ramirez? You have a ward where you've done paring conversions for protected bike lanes. You've probably also gotten some pushback from neighbors and merchants about that. So, do you have any thoughts about what she should keep in mind moving forward?
Ald. Matt Martin: Every community is different, so far be itfor me to tell her, you've got to do X, Y and Z, because she's going to know her community best, certainly better than I would. What has worked well for me is that we've had a lot of lessons learned, especially along Clark Street when we started early on. Part of it is residential abutting the cemetery. We had community meetings, and then we received some constructive feedback in terms of the actual design.
[Ald. Ramirez and CDOT have also hosted community meetings about the Archer plan, and some 500 residents provided input.]
That was really helpful when we did the second leg north of Montrose. We were able to share that constructive feedback with CDOT. We're able to have community meetings and also go door to door, because the part that's north of Montrose, it's almost like it flips on a dime, in terms of how mixed-use it is with commercial on the first floor. So going business-to-business several times to say before any plans are near final, "Here's what the design looks like. What do you think? Let's talk with you about this." Our office paired with the 46th Ward and CDOT to do that outreach, and that was helpful.
[Archer project supporters have acknowledged that, while the ward and the transportation offered opportunities for the public to provide feedback on the proposal, additional door-to-door outreach would have helped prevent pushback. On the other hand, the Archer project area is almost three times as long as the second phase of the Clark initiative, and only one ward was involved, so doing that would have been far more time consuming in Brighton Park.]
To be clear, we continue to hear from both residents and businesses with questions and concerns and are continuing to work through that as best we can. But I think early-and-often is the sort of outreach that has worked well for us, and we want to keep it up.
JG: What kind of reactions have you gotten to the second half of Clark north of Montrose to Winnemac?
AMM: I think on balance, it's, it's been positive. Look, like anywhere else in the city, we have people who are really excited. We have some people who are questioning, who are frustrated. So for me, it's trying to understand, okay, if you're excited, why? It's a little bit too soon to say, but are we starting to see improvements in terms of reduction in crashes involving bicycles? Reduction of speeding ? Are we seeing increases [in cycling]? Because we saw all three of those happening on the corridor south of Montrose. So I'm hopeful that we'll continue to see those sorts of outcomes north of Montrose.
We're continuing to talk with businesses, and for some it seems to be working out okay. For others, they still have some questions, especially around deliveries or ride-share drivers, so we're trying to think creatively about how we address that.
So it's been a good learning experience, but I think, on balance, it's it's been a positive contribution. But we're still in those early months, so let's see what happens in a few months, once the weather's really warm in a consistent way, and see what utilization looks like. And see also as maybe consumer habits change with some of those first floor businesses, what their experiences are.
Okay, and the project is pretty much complete from Montrose to win a Mac now, I believe that's correct. Maybe there's a little bit of punch list related work, maybe some paint weeks ago in particular places, but I think it's substantially complete at the school.
[Martin's story suggests that when the Archer initiative is finally completed, not everyone is going to be thrilled with it, but Ramirez should hear a lot fewer complaints. And perhaps the folks rooting for her aldermanic opponent will stop staking out her workplace every Monday. So CDOT, once the weather gets warm enough, how about wrapping up the Archer project by laying down the thermoplastic, curbs, and posts? Thanks in advance!]
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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– John Greenfield, editor
