West Town

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.

The general reporting on the meeting is by Igor Studenkov, and the commentary on the Grand Avenue project is by John Greenfield.

Last December, the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board blamed the diagonal Milwaukee Avenue bikeway for traffic jams created by car commuters fleeing Kennedy Expressway construction. "[On] many of the former alternate routes, such as... Milwaukee [the Chicago Department of Transportation has] reduced... vehicular capacity by adding bike lanes," they stated. "Those roads don’t offer any meaningful relief from a clogged expressway anymore."

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.

Last week, the Active Transportation Alliance started its 2025 Bike Commuter Challenge, presented by Keating Law Offices. (The firm is also a Streetsblog Chicago sponsor.) The first celebration station was put up on Wednesday, May 28, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the entrance to the Bloomingdale Trail, aka The 606, at Churchill Park, 1825 N. Damen Ave. in Bucktown.

Update 2/4/25, 11:30 AM: The Cook County medical examiner's office has identified the victim of the Near West Side crash as Hattie S. Mickell, 76. She lived about two miles southwest of the collision site in the North Lawndale community.

It's relatively simple to eulogize people who were well-loved, or even just generally liked, and who never really did much out of the ordinary in their lives. Longtime Chicago cycling advocate Arthur Travis Duffey, known as "Flip Bike Travis," was not such a person.

Update Monday 4/28/25, 12:45 PM: Block Club Chicago reports that on Thursday, April 24, the Chicago Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Iryna Kalach, 39, and charged her with the hit-and-run killing.

Even after we found that during non-rush hours, the lanes carried about 60 percent more bike and scooter riders than a skeptic predicted, he still wasn't impressed. But how many people ride in them during rush hours?