Promoted

As you might expect thanks to yesterday's gorgeous weather, the vibe was good at the 13th round of weekly dueling rallies for and against the Archer Avenue traffic safety project rallies in Brighton Park in the 12th Ward. Or at least that was the case according to proponent Alfredo Villadares Jr., who's lived just south of the project area in Gage Park for 37 years.

By Noah Wright

When I rolled up solo to yesterday's Portage Park Senior Center for the community meeting on the Chicago Department of Transportation's neighborhood local bikeway network proposal, there was a long line of people snaking out the door. To be honest, due to the organized opposition we've seen recently to traffic safety projects on Archer Avenue in Brighton Park, and Grand Avenue in West Town, I was a little apprehensive.

Fulton Market Association Executive Director Roger Romanelli is well-known to longtime Streetsblog Chicago readers as a resident of suburban Hillside who often intervenes in urban sustainable transportation matters. He's usually on the wrong side of these issues, with a decidely car-centric point of view. Most notoriously, his tireless lobbying against the City's Ashland bus rapid transit proposal helped get that project shelved.

Note: While this is the first pedestrian or bike fatality I've seen in news reports in 2026, it appears there were some other crash deaths this year that haven't been reported yet. Streetsblog Chicago will provide an update on these cases soon.

On much of the project area, posts, paint and new curbs haven't been added yet to help keep drivers – such as the protesters – out of the future curbside bikeways.

By Austin Busch

By Jeremy Wolff

By Ellen Steinke