Damen Avenue

Contractors should be required to install bikeway markings when the weather is conducive, so as to avoid wasting time and materials on restriping them later.

Hopefully these changes will help prevent more heartbreak. But if the city really wants to make a difference, it should build bike lanes with physical protection.

The main fly in the ointment is the lack of a proper bikeway on this stretch of Damen.

At a hearing in the Circuit Court of Cook County last week, a judge denied a motion by the city of Chicago’s law department to dismiss a lawsuit by a female bicyclist who was seriously injured after she struck a hole in one of the Damen bike lanes. The law department argued that the bike lane is “recreational property” and, as such, the city should have limited liability. The plaintiff’s attorney, Brendan Kevenides from FK Law (a Streetsblog Chicago sponsor) argues that if the judge had accepted this reasoning, it would have set a dangerous precedent for local cyclists.