Celebrating the Grand Avenue traffic safety project win on the HumboldtTown Safe Streets Ride

Intro by John Greenfield and ride report by Cameron Bolton

If you follow any of Streetsblog Chicago’s social media accounts, you may have seen the good news that the effort to block the Grand Avenue traffic safety project, between Damen and Ogden Avenues in West Town, seems to have come to the end of the road.

The Grand Avenue Committee opposition group was led by Roger Romanelli, the executive director of the single-staffer Fulton Market Association nonprofit. A resident of suburban Hillside, IL, he previously helped kill the City of Chicago’s Ashland Avenue bus rapid transit proposal.

After hearing from the Grand Avenue opponents, 27th Ward alderperson Walter “Red” Burnett III, recently appointed to replace his father Walter Burnett Jr., was interested in cancelling the already-contracted construction project within his district. But ultimately Red Burnett gave up on that idea, so the Grand corridor will get the protected bike lanes that got support from the majority of Chicago residents at two previous community meetings.

What better way to celebrate this win than with a bike ride? On Sunday morning, the Northwest Neighborhood Alliance and Chicago, Bike Grid Now! presented the HumboldtTown Safe Streets Ride, “a slow-roll bicycle ride… to celebrate two new stretches of protected bike lanes being built this year on Grand Avenue and Humboldt Drive.”

The tour, conceived by NWNA administrator Sam Kovnar, started at 11:30 and lasted about an hour. Participants departed from The Center of Order and Experimentation, 1727 W. Grand Ave., rode through the neighborhoods, and ended the trip at Alliance Bakery, 1837 W. Grand Ave. That destination was significant, because bakery owner Peter Rios opposed the safety project due to understandable concerns about the conversion of car parking.

“The drama is the City is giving in to the interests of a few suburbanites and people that have made decisions to prioritize the needs of a single business over the entire community that uses a public good resource,” said Chris Gentry, an organizer with CBGN and one of the ride marshals. “So, this ride, we’re going to be taking Grand Avenue to Humboldt Park, talking about how linking residential areas to major green spaces is such an important part of building a more interconnected Chicago. And we really hope that electeds and those in positions of power who are out here designing our infrastructure can see how many people are clearly here for this versus the three people that are the opponents of this get to a press conference.”

Once Sunday’s bike ride reached Humboldt Park, Genty said Chicago’s Boulevard System, which links several major green spaces is one of the reasons he considered this the greatest city in America. “We built our neighborhoods and our city around parkways, around greenways.”

This led Gentry to his next point: Chicago should take advantage of this feature to make our parks are more easily accessible. “This is why the Grand Avenue bike lane project is so critical,” Gentry said to the group at Humboldt Park. “It’s a way of connecting West Town to Humboldt Park. It would be even better. And one of the reasons we’re celebrating these little wins is that if they went further west or further south, if we had a grid that connected all of our parks and neighborhoods together, [that would create] safe routes… for everyone, no matter how old you are, or what your mode of transportation is.”

There was a wide range of ages at the ride, including many parents with kids. One of them was Humboldt Park resident Megan McCabe who said safer bike routes are crucial for her family because biking is the easiest way for them to get around. She said her kids don’t even want to get into a car anymore.

She added that whether her children are riding their own bikes or are passengers in a cargo cycle, riding in a city without a cohesive low-stress bike network can sometimes feel unsafe. “This is a route that we take a lot,” she said. “And the lack of protected lanes feels very different in terms of riding, and it can sometimes really stop you from going where you want to go, because you know the protected lane is going to end at some point.”

When the ride ended at the bakery, Gentry voiced some empathy for merchants who worry that swapping car space for people space is going to hurt their bottom line. “It’s not necessarily the fault of businesses that are only ever used to a world of car dominance, that can’t imagine what a world would be like where we have safe streets and connected infrastructure.”

“[The bike ride] was really great,” said participant Mackenzie Shepler. “I’ve never really ridden down here before, and I was kind of surprised at how many bike lanes there were, and and the protected bike lanes are pretty awesome. I rode here from North Center, so I just took Damen Avenue down and then turned onto Grand. I’ve never ridden on Grand before, and coming over to this bakery was very scary. Grand has very wide lanes. The drivers were going extremely fast, and it does not feel safe. And the roads are full of potholes and everything, so it’s just kind of a scary place. So it’s nice going the opposite way, where there’s protection.”

“Something that people don’t keep in mind is a lot of times when you’re prioritizing cars, it’s frustrating that you can’t get to where you want to go quickly,” said rider Cameron Uslander. “But ultimately, this is about protecting people’s lives and preventing people from dying.“

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– John Greenfield, editor