The New Navy Pier Flyover is Just Starting to Take Shape

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Over the past few months, the casual passerby walking towards Navy Pier may have assumed that a roller coaster was being assembled as part of the pier's ongoing major renovation. The steel spine snaking around Lake Point Tower though is the skeletal structure for the long anticipated Navy Pier Flyover, an enhanced stretch of the lakefront path. The new elevated alignment will eliminate two at-grade street crossings as it crosses over Grand Avenue and Illinois Street while also providing congestion relief for this heavily used portion of the popular path.

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Permalink Reply by Gene Tenner on September 15, 2015 at 8:23am
Permalink Reply by Joe Guzzardo on September 15, 2015 at 2:23pm

I hope I live long enough to use the flyover. This will be small potatoes compared to the next big improvement, which I doubt we'll ever see, to make the stretch between the Oak Street and Ohio Street beaches ride-able year 'round.

They can't bring in snow clearing equipment because of the possibility that the equipment will slide into the lake, which happened last year. 

Having said that, they are adding almost 6 acres of landfill to the lakefront by Fullerton, which can also become impassible at times, so who knows. 

If we could figure out a way to put Donald Trump's name on it somehow, I'd be a lot more hopeful about the prospect.

Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on September 18, 2015 at 4:37am

I am excited to see it coming along and while it feels painful right now, I think it's going to be amazing. That has always been such an awful, dangerous section of the path and I'm SO happy they are building a solution. 

Permalink Reply by Joe Guzzardo on September 18, 2015 at 1:04pm

Navy Pier is the biggest tourist attraction in the state. I'm hoping the flyover will increase attendance even further. I wish they could connect the McDonald's bike center adjacent to Millennium Park with the LFT. It floors me that we have a very expensive pedestrian bridge over Columbus Drive and that Millennium Park is located in a very bike unfriendly area. Now I can understand why they don't want cyclists riding around in the park itself but I think the city should do more to connect the downtown area with the LFT. They're building express lanes for buses downtown now, which seem ideal for cyclists as well. Then I would like to see Chicago enact laws requiring parking garages to set aside space for bicycles, as they do now in NYC.

These are not hard or expensive things to do. We spend outrageous sums to improve roads for motorized vehicles while infrastructure for bicyclists seems like an afterthought by comparison.

Our mayor wants to make Chicago the bike friendliest city in the nation. We should hold him to his word.

Permalink Reply by John Wayman on September 18, 2015 at 7:33am

I'm sure all the Chad's, Trixies and walkers with double wide strollers can't wait to walk across that thing 4 wide!

Permalink Reply by Tricolor on September 23, 2015 at 10:41am

I'm just worried it will look like this but completely clogged with people.

Great for tourism, but hopefully the old sidewalk stays open, too.

Permalink Reply by PK RPR on September 23, 2015 at 11:34pm
I guess IMO if this was a bike friendly project then it would have included bike friendly construction

1) blind corner detour

2) glass and scrap all over the place

3) blocking path Months before needed

This design (elevation/narrow) looks really dangerous and next to impossible to maintain

Hope I'm proven wrong

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