Editor’s note: We asked readers who are cyclists to tell us about their experiences on city streets and to share their thoughts about Chicago’s bike infrastructure. Here is a selection of those letters. We will publish more in Saturday’s edition.
One purchase on an unusually warm early March evening completely changed my life. My gently used Trek bike cost $400 and some change, but it was worth every penny.
After about two weeks of riding solely on the Lakefront Trail, I realized there was a protected bike lane straight to my office building downtown. Suddenly, I was biking to work every day instead of waiting for the CTA. The week after that, I began taking it to the grocery store. What once was a chore was now a delight, as I could smile at neighbors going by and feel the wind in my hair.
Without the protected bike lane connecting me to my office, I would never have begun my biking journey. Learning how to ride in the city is already terrifying, even without the threat of a large car sideswiping you. Having physical protection has helped me thrive in this new hobby. Riding around the streets of Chicago has opened up a whole new world and made me more appreciative of our city. I ventured into neighborhoods that I had never visited before, stopped in new businesses simply because they had a bike rack outside and met new friends I will cherish forever.
Chicago’s bike infrastructure is slowly growing but unfortunately is quite fragmented due to aldermanic prerogative. It can be frustrating going to the grocery store, and, all the sudden, there’s no bike lane. Imagine if random stretches of our city were dirt roads with no stoplights or road lines; in a bustling place like Chicago, chaos should not be the goal.
Road safety must be a citywide initiative, not dictated ward by ward. If the Chicago Department of Transportation spent the same amount of time building protected bike lanes as it does maintaining roads, we’d have a completely transformed city. I was not the first to start biking, and I won’t be the last. Highly safety-conscious riders such as parents would be more inclined to ride with their children if there were sufficient protection to do so. It’s also quite a bit of fun.
This city I call my home is resilient and innovative. We invented the skyscraper and reversed the river. We do not have to tolerate unsafe roadways. Traffic violence is a preventable problem with adequate infrastructure. It won’t be overnight, it won’t be easy, but it absolutely will be worth it.
— Emily Hugan, Chicago
Risks of riding on city streets
A short bicycle ride my wife and I took recently illustrates clearly the challenges that bicyclists face in Chicago. Riding from the North Branch Trail at Foster Street and Kostner Avenue southeast to the south end of the North Shore Channel Trail at Belmont Avenue and the Chicago River is only about 4 miles. But making that journey, or almost any other trip on a bicycle in Chicago, can be downright perilous, thanks to the lack of bicycle-friendly infrastructure in the city.
The most direct route, Elston Avenue, is a designated Chicago bike route. But for the most part, what that means is a painted line on the street that cyclists must share with drivers, many of whom travel in excess of the 30 mph speed limit that the Tribune Editorial Board supports, while cyclists must dodge illegally parked delivery trucks in the bike lane. When cyclists approach intersections, there’s not even a bike lane — just the infamous “sharrows,” or shared lane markings consisting of a bicycle symbol and a couple arrows painted on the street, allegedly to alert drivers to the fact that they’re supposed to share the road with cyclists. Cyclists, somewhat morbidly, tend to believe the sharrows are there to make it easier for vehicles to target bike riders.
The alternative is to take what Google Maps optimistically calls “bicycle-friendly” streets, such as Argyle Street and Kimball Avenue. Hah! Between navigating around the ubiquitous potholes that make up Chicago streets, contending with people exiting parked cars and competing with CTA buses, cyclists routinely face potential accidents in which they will undoubtedly come out the worst.
Only when reaching the recently built protected bicycle lanes on Belmont that are separated from traffic by a concrete barrier does a cyclist begin to feel safe. And I assure you that the hazards of our recent trip aren’t unusual; they’re typical of biking in Chicago.
To its credit, Chicago has been building more protected bike lanes. But with a grand total of only 47 miles of protected bike lanes in the entire city, in terms of bicycle-friendly infrastructure, Chicago remains far behind other cities, including those in the Midwest that also face the issues of winter weather and aging streets. Take a look at Minneapolis.
And there are vast areas of the South and Southwest sides of Chicago with virtually no protected bike lanes.
Many cyclists, including those who live in the suburbs, prefer to ride to destinations in Chicago, but we do so knowing the trip will be fraught with danger because of the lack of bicycle-friendly routes and infrastructure in the city.
— Alan K. Cubbage, Evanston
Make city safer for nondrivers
I have used a bicycle for transportation since childhood. I am now a 40-year-old father of two toddlers, and my bicycle is still my main mode of transportation. There is nothing more freeing and simultaneously frightening as riding a bike on Chicago streets.
While there has been tremendous improvement in bicycle infrastructure in Chicago over the last couple of decades, there is still so much to do. Like many people, having children made me more aware of the dangers faced by pedestrians and cyclists on our streets every day. Hearing the heart-crushing stories of children killed and injured by traffic violence in Chicago spurred me to invest my personal time to make my neighborhood and city safer for people outside of cars by getting involved in local advocacy groups and meeting with my alderperson regularly.
The introduction of e-bikes has been revolutionary for my family, allowing me to haul up to three children or an adult for long distances without a car or public transportation. Still, the hostility that we face on a daily basis is almost enough to make me want to leave the city. My wife and I have been aggressively passed within inches while riding to the theater for a date downtown, the driver yelling obscenities at us. I have been threatened by drivers honking and trailing closely while taking my children to school or the park. And I have been in crashes and near crashes with cars that left me shaking on the side of the street.
I ride an upright utility bike for errands and basic transportation. I take my leg-powered bike on the Metra and CTA. I am a regular Chicagoan simply trying to shop for groceries, get to appointments and travel through our city. People on bikes and on foot deserve to be safe. While our city is hyperfocused on cars and drivers, I am encouraged by the groundswell of safe streets initiatives and organizations that have been pressing our government to think outside of the car.
There is a long way to go, but I am hopeful that we will realize the error that we made when we gave our cities over to the automobile. Walking, biking and transit should be the de facto modes of transportation for most trips in our city.
I hope that my children can see that reality one day.
— Andrew Mack, Chicago
Beautiful and scary experience
I sold my car in November 2022 in favor of biking in Chicago because living in Lincoln Park allows me to access most of the city by bike or CTA, even in the winter. Who would have thought?
Biking in Chicago is both a beautiful and terrifying experience. One moment, you’ll be inches from a semitruck as you swerve around an illegally parked car, only to then start competing with cars going 10 mph or more over the speed limit on a four-lane arterial street. Next, you’re ripping down Berry Avenue to connect to the sublime psychological relief of the protected Belmont Avenue bike lane. It’s both incredibly freeing and incredibly dangerous.
Biking teaches you the secrets of our city’s beautiful side streets. Although you won’t find those in as much detail as you would by walking our beautiful city.
Do I like it? Why don’t you ask me after I’ve narrowly dodged a car blowing a stop sign going 20 mph on North Lakeview Avenue. Sure, I love my bike community. I love being able to reliably get anywhere I want without even needing to think about parking. I love not having to pay car insurance; I haven’t bought gasoline in two years. The constant threat of violence by angry, inattentive, impatient drivers does fray the nerves, though.
I do have hope. A recent night, I saw one of my elderly neighbors riding her bike to Lincoln Park, and seeing her gives me all the hope in the world that Chicago has its brightest days ahead of it.
— David Jones, Chicago
Penalize parking in bike lanes
As an avid cyclist, I cycle the whole city using bike lanes. I regularly cycle from the Loop to the south (safest), to the north (most dangerous) and the west (so-so). I believe the city of Chicago is making an honest effort at trying to make cyclists safer by installing bike lanes. I especially like the protected bike lanes.
My issue is that drivers of mail trucks, city Streets and Sanitation trucks and commercial vehicles for Uber, Lyft, FedEx, ComEd, UPS, Amazon and the like seem to be completely unaware that they can’t place their vehicles in the bike lanes. I have stopped to take pictures of these actions to report them to bikelaneuprising.com, and their drivers, if they even ask me what I’m doing, genuinely are unaware they are breaking the law and shrug it off when alerted to the fact. I believe tickets actually being issued and heavy fines could possibly cure some of this ignorance.
And drivers, since they can’t be trusted to be responsible on their own to keep cyclists safe, are going to continue to suffer as multilane roads lose a lane so curb/protected bike lanes can be installed. The few seconds a driver would lose to keep another human safe are going to be replaced by minutes in traffic with the loss of lanes.
— Mark Baranowski, Chicago
Parts of city are underserved
I spent 20-plus years commuting to the Loop from Andersonville by bike (1990-2012). I still travel by bike around the city to do errands and ride on the Lakefront Trail for pleasure, usually 10 to 15 miles a ride.
It’s far easier and safer to do business and pleasure by bike in Chicago than when I started riding here almost 30 years ago: The drivers are more aware of cyclists, there are more bike lanes and bike-friendly traffic lights, and the lakefront has become a far more attractive ride.
That said, there are too many parts of the city that are underserved by bike lanes, too few streets where the bike lanes are on the passenger side of parked cars, and far too many high-speed motorized bikes and unicycles in bike lanes and on the bike path. And by “too many,” I mean, there should be none.
I strongly recommend banning motorized one- and two-wheel vehicles that can go faster than 10 mph from bike lanes and bike paths. They don’t belong among slower cyclists and pedestrians.
— Alan Neff, Chicago
Potholes a menace to cyclists
Regarding bicycles, one aspect of infrastructure rarely mentioned is the state of streets in general. Bike-eating potholes are common and nearly impossible to avoid on streets lacking bike lanes. Bike lanes, inexplicably, seem to have more potholes than the car lanes next to them. Avoiding these hazards requires pulling into car traffic, which is often dangerous or impossible.
— Diana Faulhaber, Chicago
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
