Is the Wellington Greenway a victory for cyclists, and a Waterloo for bikeway foes with a Napoleon Complex?
Check out the intro to Streetsblog Chicago Bike Lane Fest 2025-26 here.
As a result of the Chicago Department of Transportation’s Mid Northeast Neighborhood Bike Network plan, a section of our city where lots of people ride bikes, which previously had few designated east-west cycling routes, now has several good ones. Here are a few recently Neighborhood Greenways, basically located between the Chicago River and the Lakefront Trail, that I’d recommend as nice places to ride:
A new addition to that collection is the Wellington Avenue (3000 N., a mile south of Grace) Neighborhood Greenway in Lakeview., covering about 2.5 miles between Leavitt Street/Clybourn Avenue (2200 W.) and Inner Lake Shore Drive (500 W.) at the Lincoln Park green space. At its eastern end, the Greenway connects with the LFT via DuSable Lake Shore Drive underpasses at Briar Street (3030 N.) and Diversey Parkway (2800 N.), accessible by multi-use paths through the park.
The Wellington Greenway project features “contraflow” bike lanes to legalize two-way cycling and e-scooter riding on a couple of one-way eastbound stretches, and notify drivers that people on bikes and scooters may be coming from the other direction. Before installation, CDOT traffic counts found that 20-25 percent of cyclists in some sections of Wellington were already riding against traffic, so the contraflow laners makes it safer to do so.
In addition, CDOT lowered the speed limit on the greenway corridor to 20 mph. However, the department did not add any physical infrastructure, just paint on the road, and didn’t convert any car parking spaces.
Originally, the City proposed the Wellington Greenway as a straight-shot, single-street route, including a westbound contraflow stretch between Clark Street (700 W.) and Inner LSD.
The original plan for the Wellington Greenway as a one-street route. Image: CDOT
However, the proposal received pushback at a July 2025 community meeting on the project, including people worrying about more bike and e-scooter traffic in front of Illinois Masonic Hospital, 836 W. Wellington Ave. There may have also been some opposition from residents of toney East Lakeview.
A video of the July 2025 hearing from Chicago, Bike Grid Now!
CDOT wound up altering the design somewhat. Instead of using a westbound contraflow lane near the lake, westbound riders are supposed to take Oakdale Avenue (2930 N.), a block south of Wellington, from Inner LSD to Lakewood Avenue (1230 W.) There, they head north to Wellington, and continue west to Leavitt. It’s a less intuitive route, but still very rideable.
I asked CDOT spokesperson Erica Schoeder about the route transplant yesterday. “This project was initially proposed as a single neighborhood greenway corridor on Wellington between Leavitt and Inner LSD. Working with the wards and local stakeholders, it was decided to split the greenway into a ‘couplet’ east of Lakewood,” she replied. “Please see our project flyer and our select exhibits document for more detailed explanation of the route, and other highlights.”
Since that makes the bike and scooter route between Leavitt and the lake a little harder to figure out, and a bit longer, that’s not an ideal outcome. And it’s worth noting that people on 40-pound bikes and scooters are much less of a danger to hospital patients, visitors, and employees than drivers of 4,000-pounds-plus cars and trucks are. Still, the greenway route tweak is not a major setback.
All right, let’s get to the fun part of this article. Here’s a gallery of photographs I shot while riding west from Lincoln Park to Leavitt on Oakdale and Wellington, followed by a video of my eastbound trip. I started taking photos at 5 p.m., when it was 90F. All images are by yours truly.
Head to the end of this post for a funny, if somewhat embarrassing, story from my travels.
Here is the video from my eastbound trip. Note that, unfortunately, a lot of eastbound drivers were using this side street as an eastbound “cut-through” route in an effort to avoid traffic on the Belmont Avenue (3200 N.) and Diversey arterials. Installing traffic diverters to prevent this would make the street safer for people on foot, bikes, and scooters, and more pleasant for neighbors hanging out on their porches.
And here’s the humorous tale I mentioned. A mea culpa: In this video, I break my own rule about not interacting with drivers who are reckless or disrespectful. That habit has served me well in recent years, but maybe the heat made disregard it yesterday. Fortunately the result wasn’t tragic, but comical.
If you haven’t already noticed from the shadows in my handlebar videos, I shoot them while holding my smartphone in my right hand. I’m a clumsy person, but I have a good sense of balance, and after spending six years total as a Chicago bike messenger, I feel very comfortable riding one-handed. (Kids, don’t try this at home.) So here’s what happened, which you can see and hear in the video.
12:30: At Wellington/Clark, I pulled up to a red light behind a Hyundai Santa Fe SUV. Instead of squeezing between it and parked cars, I waited behind the SUV. I was still holding my phone aloft, so the driver me have thought I was filming him.
12:55: A bike rider and a scooterista passed us as the light turned green. The SUV driver caught up with them and honked as he passed. It sounded like words might have been exchanged.
14:00: I caught up with the Santa Fe driver at another traffic signal at Broadway. I turned to look at a bake sale on my right, and was perhaps slightly late to proceed after the light turned green. “Put the phone down you clown!” the SUV pilot yelled out the window as he passed me.
15:45: I caught up with the Hyundai driver once again at a red at Sheridan Road (600 W.) “How’s it going?” I said through his closed window. “I missed what you said. Do you wanna repeat that?” He put his hand to his head in a phone gesture, paused for a moment, and then blew me a kiss as the light turned green and he took off.
Afterward, I felt l’esprit d’escalier as I stood in the part reviewing the video. That’s when, somehow, the Santa Fe guy drove by me one more time. He yelled out the window, “You’re a weird f—in’ dude!”
I suppose it takes one to know one?
Let’s end this post on a positive note with ABBA’s song “Waterloo.”
Apologies to any Streetsblog readers who were mystified by the title of this article, but the first line of this tune helps explain it: “At Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender [to British troops led by the Duke of Wellington.]”
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