Pilsen

On Monday, the Donald Trump-controlled Department of Homeland Security announced a sting by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Illinois and Chicago, dubbed Operation Midway Blitz. In response, bike riders are protesting the campaign, and notifying residents who may be at risk of what Mayor Brandon Johnson recently called "militarized immigration enforcement without due process."

About two months earlier, a turning trucker killed a 44-year-old man in a crosswalk at Cermak/Ashland, just two blocks south.

Tragically, a semi truck driver reportedly disobeyed his signal while making a right turn, and ran over and killed a 44-year-old man, last Friday afternoon next to Benito Juarez High School in Pilsen.

Earlier this month, a 64-year-old man died from injuries he suffered in October, when a hit-and-run Jeep driver struck him on the 1900 block of South Union Avenue (700 W.), besides the Dan Ryan Expressway in Pilsen. Exactly one week after his death, residents gathered for a community meeting to discuss the possibility of rebooting the proposal for El Paseo Trail. That would be a rails-to-trails bike-pedestrian route, which would run just three blocks west of the crash site.

Meanwhile, discussion of the neighborhood's El Paseo rails-to-trails proposal, shelved in 2022 by concerns it might speed up housing displacement, is starting again with a meeting this Wednesday.

After Time Out magazine highlighted the roadway's cachet, CTA and the local alder discuss new Pink Line station art and an upcoming nearby Neighborhood Greenway.

Hopefully this second death will make it even more obvious to city and state officials that Cermak needs to made safer, and they will take action.

"[This is] even more reason for the alderman to step up and do something about traffic safety in this city," said a Streetsblog reader.

Los defensores de la justicia ambiental están trabajando para un futuro con buenos empleos y comunidades seguras, saludables y transitables.