The Chainlink

Reckless

Approaching the North Avenue bridge this morning on my way to work, I saw a fire truck blocking the path right where the LFT forks. Uh-oh . . . Sure enough, there was a man, unconscious, on the ground, paramedics working on him, and a small group of people around a biker, explaining something to them, waiving his arms energetically. (My guess is, he either witnessed what happened there, or was involved—I did not see the accident itself.) Of course, they were standing right on the path.

Yes, they were standing on the bike path, half of which was blocked by emergency personnel, at a rather busy intersection half blocked again by a fire truck. Can't they move their asses a fucking three feet to the side to let others through?!

I see this kind of behavior every single day.

I should have stopped noticing it by now.

But it still amazes me.

 

. . . I hope the man is OK.

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Permalink Reply by S on July 14, 2011 at 4:01pm


Zach said:

But in the "silly season" from April to September, those rules kind of get tossed aside and it's better to assume that most people on the path have no idea about path etiquette. To them it's just a sidewalk with a bunch of cyclists on it, most of them yelling. If Chicago Parks had signage up that indicated what the LFP was, i.e. a path dedicated to cyclists, I would find quarrel with that. But because there are few official indications of that, I can't begrudge the runners, strollers, and walkers, even though they annoy me to no end.

 

 


The LFP isn't a path dedicated to cyclists.  I believe that it's officially designated as a multi-use path meaning that the runners, walkers, roller bladers, xc skiers, etc. have just as much right to be on the path as the cyclists.  

Permalink Reply by Zach on July 14, 2011 at 4:15pm
Ahh, I misspoke. I kinda knew that anyway.
Permalink Reply by Carter O'Brien on July 14, 2011 at 4:23pm

Yeah, it clearly is a multi-use path and needs to be shared, but at the very least it seems reasonable to expect all users to respect the lanes, which are striped and indicate direction.  Viewing it as a sidewalk isn't reasonable IMO, but as you say, the Park District certainly doesn't help much in that regard.

 

And the path does (or at least used to, I haven't checked in a while) have at least a few token signs indicating that pedestrians are supposed to stay along the edges.

 


S said:



The LFP isn't a path dedicated to cyclists.  I believe that it's officially designated as a multi-use path meaning that the runners, walkers, roller bladers, xc skiers, etc. have just as much right to be on the path as the cyclists.  

Permalink Reply by Joel on July 14, 2011 at 4:30pm
There isn't a lot of signage.  I don't want to kick all non-cyclists off the path (well, maybe a little), I just want some better signage to help with traffic management.  I don't think most of the people who are clogging it up even realize it.

Carter O'Brien said:

Yeah, it clearly is a multi-use path and needs to be shared, but at the very least it seems reasonable to expect all users to respect the lanes, which are striped and indicate direction.  Viewing it as a sidewalk isn't reasonable IMO, but as you say, the Park District certainly doesn't help much in that regard.

 

And the path does (or at least used to, I haven't checked in a while) have at least a few token signs indicating that pedestrians are supposed to stay along the edges.

 


S said:



The LFP isn't a path dedicated to cyclists.  I believe that it's officially designated as a multi-use path meaning that the runners, walkers, roller bladers, xc skiers, etc. have just as much right to be on the path as the cyclists.  

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