42nd Ward

Yesterday, family members, friends, and supporters gathered to install a "ghost bike" memorial to fallen cyclist Yader "Yak" Casteneda, 18 at Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue in the Loop. In speeches during the vigil, his loved ones remembered him as an ambitious, hard-working person, and a supportive brother and friend, who lit up a room with his presence. 

Livable streets advocates were well represented at yesterday's community meeting on "The Grant Park Framework Plan – Chicago’s Front Yard Reimagined" at the Maggie Daley Park fieldhouse, 337 E. Randolph St. And they walked away happy, because the proposal includes putting a deck over DuSable Lake Shore Drive downtown to help make the the Third Coast more accessible and attractive.

In the short term, new signage is needed to designate legal areas for cycling on the path. In the long term CDOT should build the proposed Wacker Drive protected bike lane.

Dearborn is getting northbound PBLs north of Kinzie, and Clark is getting southbound ones, but Wells Street will have to wait.

In his July 21 edition of Alderman [Brendan] Reilly Reports, the downtown City Council member (42nd Ward) shared the good news that the Chicago Department of Transportation is gearing up to expand the city's bike lane network by 150 miles. You can check out the plans on CDOT's 2023 Chicago Cycling Strategy report.

The changes would be paid for by a developer as part of the deal for a 33-story residential building at the old Cassidy Tire site.

In some alternate-universe Chicago, Cardenas' 12th Ward is crisscrossed with bike lanes, and his ally Brendan Reilly hasn't done multiple things to block downtown bike and pedestrian access.

While signs and markings on the Lakefront Trail lead cyclists to the riverwalk, signs at the promenade warn that they'll be prosecuted if they ride there, even though it's still legal to do so.

The car-pedestrian crashes included 48 cases with incapacitating injuries, but there have been no media reports of serious bike/ped crashes in the ward. So why is Alderman Reilly focused on banning bikes on the riverwalk?