extending the Lakefront bike path to Howard Street...

I'd like to start a discussion about the plans to extend the bike path north to Evanston. Such a plan exists. It is the "last four miles" plan. "Friends of the Parks" is the main advocacy group behind this plan. Basically, there are 2 miles at the Southern end of the city, the Indiana border, and 2 miles left at the northern end of the city. This would be an extension of the lakefront bike and running path from it's current end just north of Hollywood, and extend it north.   One can learn a lot about the plan from the Friends of the Park site. There are great ecological benefits all round, but as this is a bikers site, let's just mention the big bene for bikers....finally, you won't have to risk life and limb just to get to Rogers Park....

http://fotp.org/page/2?s=last+four+miles&x=0&y=0

There's a wealth of info here about the history of the plan, benefits for the lake, benefits of cleaner air, more beaches, more parks, and acting on Daniel Burnham's century old vision, a lakefront "forever free and open".                                           

Views: 725

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Duppie on October 1, 2012 at 1:47am

Lots of benefits (mainly cut-and-paste of existing research) are mentioned, but I could not find any costs. What is the total estimated cost?

Permalink Reply by Lanterne Rouge on October 1, 2012 at 2:09am

Good question.

I agree that the benefits would be plentiful.

Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on October 1, 2012 at 2:14am

A disadvantage for lakeshore residents: they may lose their exclusive and direct access to their beaches and overlooks. 

Permalink Reply by Duppie on October 1, 2012 at 2:31am

This is the main reason I don't see this happen anytime soon.

My Alderman, Harry Osterman is developing a Masterplan regarding issues in his ward. Topics include housing, transportation, and environmental issues. He specifically excluded discussions about extending the lakefront up north. Pushing it would be political suicide.

Steven Vance said:

A disadvantage for lakeshore residents: they may lose their exclusive and direct access to their beaches and overlooks. 

Permalink Reply by Bill Savage on October 1, 2012 at 2:36am

This is a terrible plan for the North Side.  We do NOT need more landfill park.  Rogers Park and Edgewater have unique urban/nature interface: street-end beaches.  You walk to the end of the street, bang, you're in the sand and at the water.  Not crossing the extension of Lake Shore Drive (and, rest assured, if they ever extend the landfill park any further north, it will mean extending Lake Shore Drive), then parking lots, access roads, soccer fields, blahblahblah.  And, frankly, anyone who thinks that you have to risk life and limb to get to Rogers Park is riding in Sheridan Road rather than the many quiet, safe, sidestreets, many of which have bike lanes.  The 2 miles at the south end of the city are former industrial sites, and making them into parks is fine.  But leave Rogers Park/Edgewater be.  This plan led me to drop my membership in, and contributions to, Friends of the Parks.

Permalink Reply by Bill Savage on October 1, 2012 at 2:40am

Only a dozen or so buildings have private beaches, a left-over from when the area was not part of the city and property extended to the riparian border (the waterline, basically).  The reason Ostermann knows this is political suicide is that every time there's an advisory vote on this matter, the residents of the area ovewhelming vote to NOT extend the landfill park any further north.  Even when gerrymandered by proponents of this plan (who assumed that only people living right by the lake would oppose it).  FOP says this plan would cost $400 million.  Hah.  And even if it did come in on time and under budget, that money would be better spent on the neglected inland parks. 

My take on this from several years ago in the Reader:

http://events.chicagoreader.com/chicago/daniel-burnham-told-us-to-f...



Duppie said:

This is the main reason I don't see this happen anytime soon.

My Alderman, Harry Osterman is developing a Masterplan regarding issues in his ward. Topics include housing, transportation, and environmental issues. He specifically excluded discussions about extending the lakefront up north. Pushing it would be political suicide.

Steven Vance said:

A disadvantage for lakeshore residents: they may lose their exclusive and direct access to their beaches and overlooks. 

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on October 1, 2012 at 2:51am

There is already a lakefront path that goes all the way to Evanston.   If only they could get the cars to quit driving on it the route would be perfect for bicyclists. 

Permalink Reply by Mark on October 1, 2012 at 3:00am

This is the problem.  We can't get a bike path because lakefront NIMBY's think this will automatically lead to an extension of LSD.  I know that CDOT and Ald. Osterman have killed any plans for extending LSD.  The costs are too high - besides, why would the City spend millions just to benefit the commute of North Shore commuters?

Bill Savage said:

This is a terrible plan for the North Side.  We do NOT need more landfill park.  Rogers Park and Edgewater have unique urban/nature interface: street-end beaches.  You walk to the end of the street, bang, you're in the sand and at the water.  Not crossing the extension of Lake Shore Drive (and, rest assured, if they ever extend the landfill park any further north, it will mean extending Lake Shore Drive), then parking lots, access roads, soccer fields, blahblahblah.  And, frankly, anyone who thinks that you have to risk life and limb to get to Rogers Park is riding in Sheridan Road rather than the many quiet, safe, sidestreets, many of which have bike lanes.  The 2 miles at the south end of the city are former industrial sites, and making them into parks is fine.  But leave Rogers Park/Edgewater be.  This plan led me to drop my membership in, and contributions to, Friends of the Parks.

Permalink Reply by Duppie on October 1, 2012 at 3:16am

Thanks Bill, for posting that link. It makes a good point about thinking twice how to spend limited funds.

Bill Savage said:

Only a dozen or so buildings have private beaches, a left-over from when the area was not part of the city and property extended to the riparian border (the waterline, basically).  The reason Ostermann knows this is political suicide is that every time there's an advisory vote on this matter, the residents of the area ovewhelming vote to NOT extend the landfill park any further north.  Even when gerrymandered by proponents of this plan (who assumed that only people living right by the lake would oppose it).  FOP says this plan would cost $400 million.  Hah.  And even if it did come in on time and under budget, that money would be better spent on the neglected inland parks. 

My take on this from several years ago in the Reader:

http://events.chicagoreader.com/chicago/daniel-burnham-told-us-to-f...



Duppie said:

This is the main reason I don't see this happen anytime soon.

My Alderman, Harry Osterman is developing a Masterplan regarding issues in his ward. Topics include housing, transportation, and environmental issues. He specifically excluded discussions about extending the lakefront up north. Pushing it would be political suicide.

Steven Vance said:

A disadvantage for lakeshore residents: they may lose their exclusive and direct access to their beaches and overlooks. 

Permalink Reply by Mark on October 1, 2012 at 3:20am

The ballot referendums asked voters if they favored extending LSD, including commercial land uses.  There was never an option to vote on only extending the bike path.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on October 1, 2012 at 3:22am

We need a lot more investment in improving south side rideability NOW.  We've gotten some commitment through Streets for Cycling, although most of those routes are taking a back seat to the north side on the implementation schedule.  We need improvements on Vincennes now, not 3 years from now.

I also recognize the desire for a lakefront connection from Ardmore up to Evanston, and I have mixed feelings about it.  I used to live in Rogers Park near one of those street-end beaches, and it was lovely.  They were peaceful and pleasant in a way that doesn't exist at any of the larger beaches.  At the same time, people who enjoy walking from beach to beach got frustrated, because every few streets there was a condo building with a wall or fence and signage designating their piece of the shore as a private beach, keeping quiet peaceful beach walkers (the majority) from enjoying an uninterrupted walk.  From Devon south to Ardmore, there's almost no public access to the water.

Extending the lakefront path would involve a major fight with those condo buildings over that "private" space.  They've fought so hard against anyone else passing by their beach in the summer months.  I think they'd fight like hell to prevent year-round access on the lake side of their buildings via a path.  It would also mean loss of the smaller street-end beaches to years of construction, until beaches are eventually re-established, further away from people's homes.

Given the city's budget constraints, more investment in bike improvements on the south side definitely gets my vote.  This would include a path connection from the old South Works development site to Calumet Park - the southern end of FOTP's "Last 4 Miles" plan.  That is old industrial land, not anyone's "private" back yard.

Daniel G said:

Not a priority. There are a lot of places to build trails and cycle tracks that won't require massive expenditures of political capital. Focus needs to come off the North side at some point, in any case. For most citizens, the South side is effectively unrideable. There must be plenty of derelict rail corridor that could be used to get some trails running downtown and elsewhere.

Permalink Reply by sten on October 1, 2012 at 3:26am

I'd be more interested to hear talk of the southern two miles. I've got a place on 76th at the lakefront, now lovingly known as "terror town," and I feel like at this point any investment by the city to improve mobility in and out can only help. I can't speak for my neighbors, but I feel like there would be a lot less resistance, even though there are some beautiful old co-ops with exclusive lake access now. It would have been nice to have that discussion when they got the project going to relocate US41, but that's already broken ground.

RSS

Groups

© 2008-2016   The Chainlink Community, L.L.C.   Powered by

Disclaimer  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service