Chicago to expand Northwest Side cycling, walking path on river

Plans call for a bridge crossing over the North Branch of the Chicago River and a multi-use trail on the east bank of the river underneath Addison Street, near California, to connect existing trails for cyclists, runners, and pedestrians between two parks.

Those two parks are California Park, north of Addison Street, and Clark Park, which is south of Addison Street.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/redeye-chicago-ri...

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Permalink Reply by Rich S on July 7, 2015 at 7:27am

This is great news. Crossing the river at Addison can be a short but stressful part of my ride.

The article isn't clear but seems to imply that they'll be building a new bridge to cross the river. I gotta think it would be considerably less costly to just modify Irving Park, Addison, and Belmont to make those bridges safer for cyclists. Also would provide 3 rather than 1 safe crossing.

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Permalink Reply by This PBL dosnt make me feel safe on July 7, 2015 at 8:28am

Here is CDOT's presentation for the project:

https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/cdot/bridge/ge...

If they're building Alt. 3 as the picture in the Tribune implies, that's a 1/4 mile (!) of pedestrian bridge. Even though a river crossing there is mildly useful since Irving Park and Addison are irremediably crap cross-over routes, this is not a fiscally prudent project at this time.