The Chainlink

Hey guys,

 

I may be working at 35th and Halsted next month in Bridgeport. I live in Uptown and would commute down there, but I normally never bike up or down Halsted. How safe is it to ride in terms of road quality, drivers, etc?

 

Also, what are your favorite bike streets to take that are parallel to and near Halsted?

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The one trick I've found is that after you pass Archer, there are two one-way streets parallell to Halsted, so I cut over to Emerald on the way down and Union on the way home so I get 15 blocks (10 for you) of virtually traffic free riding.

Great tip, Mike, I'll have to try that sometime.

Have you tried 33rd street as I suggested above? Or do you prefer Archer for the distance it saves as a diagonal?

Take Halsted south to the detour and go left on Division.  Then right and head down Kingsbury to Chicago.  At Chicago go left and then quick right to continue down Kingsbury until Kinzie.  Go right on Kinzie through the bike lane and over the river.  Under the underpass turn left and go south on Clinton until you get to Harrison and take it to the right until you get back to Halsted.

 

I live in Pilsen but go up north pretty often and this is my route.  It skips all of the worst parts

The detour I was suggesting is Division W. (<1 block) to Hooker, SE to Halsted (thanks to Steven for mentioning it on the bridge thread.)

No! I live right at this intersection basically, and would strongly suggest taking Division east to Crosby, and following that to Larrabee down to Chicago, and then cross over the river back to Halsted.  Division, including the bridge, is really congested and in poor condition.  The detour is routing all of the large trucks down Hooker (cars down Larrabee) and the traffic is a nightmare with cars not paying any attention.

 

Or do what someone else suggested and instead of getting back on Halsted, take Kingsbury to Kinzie to Clinton and take that south past Greektown.

 


h333 said:

The detour I was suggesting is Division W. (<1 block) to Hooker, SE to Halsted (thanks to Steven for mentioning it on the bridge thread.)
33rd is a good alternative to Archer, less traffic for sure, but it adds about 5 minutes to the ride.  Not a big deal, unless you're always late, like I am.  As far as the detour goes, I always take the Hooker/west side option.  To clarify though, I ride to work at 6:00am, so there's much less traffic, and the detour is definitely not a good option if you are not comfortable riding in traffic, i.e. in the middle of the road.  The train tracks are also dangerous at that intersection, as they cross at a 45 degree angle.  Just remember to keep your wheel at 90 degrees to the tracks.  One more thing to watch out for is the steel plates about a block north of the Apple store.  It started out as a hole in the street big enough to swallow a wheel, then the city kindly stuck a traffic cone in it, which was the only warning for months, then a steel plate, now there are three steel plates covering the entire southbound lane. 

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