The Chainlink

I have a few I can name that I do my best to avoid ever riding on and last weekend, when I was outside of my normal riding area, I realized my knowledge is pretty limited so I thought I'd post this in hopes to start an ongoing thread of streets that are pretty miserable for riding a bike. 

To get it started...

  • Ashland Ave. - No bike lanes, speeding cars
  • Michigan Ave. - No bike lanes, speeding cars, tourists, gaggles of buses
  • Western Ave.  - Ashland but with cowboy hats ;-)

The other thread... What Are Your Favorite Chicago-Area Bike Lanes, Paths & Routes?

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Good one! I think I mentally blocked that one from my mind. I have a route that goes West to avoid Clark entirely. The worst part is when heading South on Clark and coming up to the split, needing to stay on Clark and having to move over to the left with the crazy fast traffic. Nothing bike friendly about it. Looking forward to a solid alternative. 

A mantra I've been repeating to myself over the past year or two:

"Granville is your savior."

That part really sucks, as well. I wonder if this street might ever someday get any kind of a partial road diet, even if cut down both sides of Clark by as little as 1 less north/south travel lane? A la what was done to Broadway, south of Foster. Which made it so much better for biking, that's for sure! I don't have any problems biking on Clark north or south of the 'Clashland' combined segment, or on Ashland north of Devon/Clark.

Haha, Western ave YEEE HAA!

Thank you! I think you made my day for catching my bad joke. :-)

:D You are welcome. Riding the West side is a bigger rodeo. Woo ha!

Devon Avenue, between Northwest Highway and Milwaukee.  Trying to get to the North Branch Trail.

The alternative is Imway Street, only slightly added distance.

Oh yeah.

Imlay is the best alternate to Devon in that area, for sure. Don't forget you can bike into the forest preserve picnic area(once you cross Milwaukee successfully), and then use the spur to get over to the North Branch trail, and take that east. Too bad there aren't many alternates around Caldwell and Peterson, other than either biking(illegally) on the sidewalk, or potentially walking your bike east on the Devon sidewalk to Leoti(where it also intersects with Spokane), take that east to Leader, then go south on Leader to Lansing, then go east to Forest Glen. Then right(after passing Peterson) on Sauganash Ave, left on Kostner, then use the bike path to go east to where Granville picks up again.

Yeah, biking through Sauganash is a mess for sure.

All the east-west stretches between the Expressway and the River between Fullerton and Irving Park, with my personal banes being Diversey and Belmont during rush hour.

I also think the murdery setup as Elston does that weird split as it meets Ashland heading north deserves its own special award.

Ahhhh...Armitage/Elston/Ashland...seriously, I fear for my life when I drive a car past there...I can't imagine taking my bike that way...

Especially going north on Elston.  Need one of those green painted bike lanes so cars turning onto Ashland hopefully give you right of way.  A curbed island would be good to have there too where it is just white painted lines now.

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