The Chainlink

Describe the part in your commute that gives you white knuckles, whether its a street or bridge you cross, or a section that alway has you crossing your fingers. For me , its when i turn onto Higgins and i make the sprint to Bessie Coleman Dr . Lots of traffic, trucks ,cabs and passenger vehicles, and seemingly not many people paying attention

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Sedville ain't so bad as all that. It's getting fancier all the time. It is an interesting transition from the super-wealthy homes North of Armitage to the medium-rich-people housing between Armitage and North and then through the remnants of Cabrini in Sedville. You can tell the difference by how often the city repaves each block. 

I dont find Wells all that bad - have you ever tried just taking Clark all the way?

Clark - Halsted - Lincoln - Wells - Kinzie - Clark....

Forget about that stretch of Wells--it's the worst! Jump on Sedgwick at Webster/Clark, follow it to Division where you jog East a bit to Orleans. After Oak but before Ohio be sure to jump over to Franklin or Wells to Kinzie.

That takes me too far East--my office is on Franklin.

Touhy between McCormick and Crawford in Lincolnwood.  Volume, speed and lots of curb cuts.  Unfortunately, I take that route to cross the canal between McCormick and Kedzie.    Would be nice to have a ped/bike bridge across the canal at Pratt.   Nice bike lane in Chicago and Pratt in Lincolnwood is wide with substantially less volume that either Devon or Touhy.

I don't like many (Kennedy) expressway crossings. Lots of fast and/or frustrated traffic on wider roads with higher speed limits. My current stress point is California between Diversey and Wellington.

I ride Damen south from Wilson down to Taylor. Damen from Lake to Ogden is *THE WORST*. Some days if I'm not feeling it I add over a mile on to my commute to cut east, south and then back west (or reverse if I'm on my way home) just to avoid the way some people drive. 

Agreed, that stretch driven heavily by folks who think bikes belong on sidewalks. Can Slow Roll somehow address this common perception and its consequences?

Yeah, lame stretch of road.  I usually go east to Paulina, is that the extra you're talking about?

The fastest route to my office is straight up Canal.  Ironically, the most dangerous section BY FAR is the parking-"protected" lane from Roosevelt to Harrison.

 

This portion of the lane routinely is blocked by both cars and pedestrians (and sometimes shopping carts).  Cars turning across the lane without looking are an ever-present danger.  In the winter, the lane is filled with snow and debris, deposited from the traffic lanes, the parking area, AND the sidewalk.

 

Today, for example,  I encountered 3 pedestrians strolling down the middle of the lane with their heads buried in their phones and also a cab that drove down the protected lane for half a block before parking in the middle of the lane to mail a letter.

 

The inexcapable conclusion is that the parked cars don't protect anything.  On the contrary, most of these issues did not occur before the protected lane was installed, when the cars were parked on the right.

i've taken canal a few times to avoid construction on loomis - and - wow - i feel you. a really stressful stretch that ends with getting dumped unceremoniously into a writhing pit of traffic trying to get west into the loop. i've contemplated the harrison bike lanes to get east but never want to navigate that long line of traffic waiting to turn right - and - have found that theres no great way to get north off of harrison...

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