what's going on with Loomis?

I ride Loomis from Archer-ish to Blue Island every day, and the bike lanes - as well as the bike route signs along the road - disappeared when the road was resurfaced last year.

I checked in with the Chicago Bike Program in March on their facebook page and they said this: "Yes they will striped soon. They are being included in a group of locations to be upgraded this summer" - but - summer's over - no striping!

Plus, the volume of traffic has increased a LOT in that time, in a way that seems to suggest it's been discovered by Waze as an alternative to Ashland? Halsted? - but - we need bike lanes more than ever on that stretch.

anyone experiencing the same thing, or have any idea what's going on, or suggestions for what we might do about it?

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Permalink Reply by Maurice on October 13, 2016 at 5:46am

Maybe call the Ward office? It looks like the bridge is between 11 and 25:

11th Ward
Alderman              Patrick Daley Thompson
Address                3659 South Halsted Street, Chicago IL 60609
Ward phone          773-254-6677

25th Ward
Alderman              Daniel S. Solis
Address                1800 South Blue Island Avenue, Chicago IL 60608
Ward phone          773-523-4100

Pat Thompson holds a lot of community meetings as well.

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Permalink Reply by Kara B on October 13, 2016 at 5:49am

thanks Maurice :)

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Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on October 13, 2016 at 10:47am

I used the email addresses listed at http://chi.streetsblog.org/chicago-bike-infrastructure-resources/ to email CDOT and Alderman Solis about the issue earlier today. But I have yet hear back.

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Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on April 20, 2017 at 7:51am

I pinged CDOT via twitter (again) this week and got a response. It sounds a lot like the response from March of 2016, but perhaps this time it is true?

sorry for the slow response - but I believe the lanes have faded - shld be restriped by a federally funded project this spring/summer.

https://twitter.com/ChicagoDOT/status/854420516257619968

The lanes have not faded, the street was resurfaced last year.

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Permalink Reply by Waymond Smith on April 20, 2017 at 10:24am

I don't understand why it's taking so long to place non-skid metal plates on the Loomis bridge. I've been asking for 2 years and keep getting different answers. I was told at the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council meeting that they "no idea" when this will occur and "we will need to wait until they do work on the bridge".

It appears that improvements go to the northside while the city 'punishes" the southside.

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Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on August 18, 2017 at 3:42am

No plates on the bridge yet, but this morning we were super happy to find that after two+ years, the striping is finally happening! And while our data is anecdotal, so far, the drivers are respecting the lanes.

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Permalink Reply by Alex Z on August 18, 2017 at 4:21am

Terrific news!

I rode Loomis last weekend and thought it was great. It was a low-volume time for traffic, though.

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Permalink Reply by Kara B on September 7, 2017 at 6:10am

update on Loomis: northbound Loomis is almost entirely bollarded between Eleanor and Cermak: this is GREAT NEWS and is a game changer for my commute.

Encourage all of you who may have been avoiding it to return! especially since the timing coincided with the addition of back to school traffic - which means that car traffic has been backing up a lot more than usual - which makes me a little scared that the drivers of those cars will blame it on the reinstated bike lanes and share their displeasure about that. I'm going to thank Alderman Solis proactively :)

still no progress on the metal plates over the bridge, hopefully that comes soon for those of us with skinny tires!