Neighborhood Greenways

Yesterday, I visited the site where a northbound minivan driver fatally struck Juslene Akeza, 4, as she was crossing Talman Avenue (2630 W.) westbound on the north side of Granville Avenue (6200 W.) in West Ridge. That tragedy happened along the recently installed Granville Avenue Neighborhood Greenway. But as I noted in my writeup of the crash, the new east-west street design was basically irrelevant to the motorist's failure to hit the brakes in time, the reason why police cited them for failure to reduce speed.

The serious and fatal bicycle crashes that spurred the City of Chicago to build the Long Avenue Neighborhood Greenway were tragic. But Thursday's celebration of the recent traffic safety upgrades, held at Portage Park Elementary School, was a hopeful and inspiring event.

In October 2023, a sedan driver struck and killed Josh Anleu, 16, as he biked through the intersection of Waveland (3700 N.) and Long (5400 W.) avenues in the Portage Park community. At a ceremony that November to install a "ghost bike" memorial at the site, his mother Karen Buendia tearfully told the crowd, "If we, as human beings, don’t care about other people’s lives, we're going to keep killing each other."

The Wellington Avenue Neighborhood Greenway is a relatively anodyne project that will have little impact on drivers. But at last week's community meeting, some motorists raised a fuss.

Update 6/30/25, 2:45 PM: According to the most recent info from the 32nd Ward, represented by Ald. Scott Waguespack, there will be a meeting on this project Wednesday, July 7, 6 p.m. in the community room of Illinois Masonic Hospital, 836 W. Wellington. Here's how to get to the entrance to that building from the local Brown Line station.

Check out Part 1: Uptown, Lincoln Square, West Ridge, Rogers Park, Edgewater here

Check out Part 1: Uptown, Lincoln Square, West Ridge, Rogers Park, Edgewater here

Next year, sustainable transportation advocates can inspect the infrastructure of their blocks, attend a state summit, and learn how to advocate for a Neighborhood Greenway.

Plus the mainstream media breaks its silence on the Dickens plaza removal issue, with a good article and a great letter to the editor in the Chicago Tribune