When will the Trail Separation project be completed?

So my girlfriend just informed me that she was in a bike-on-bike accident on the Lakefront Trail at Belmont. It's an area where separation has occurred and lines have been painted. But the old lines still exist and there is no transition from old to new lines, nor direction for pedestrians and bikers on which lanes to choose.

This area has bugged the crap out of me for a long while now. A couple of weeks ago, I honestly seriously considered creating my own stencils and bringing some paint out there and doing it myself.

So, anybody know when it's going to be finished? Or is this going to need to be a DIY project?

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Permalink Reply by Ernesto Lube on May 29, 2019 at 2:43am

I meant - for that sign to be placed north of the big boat - in between the two red circles. 

Permalink Reply by Allan on June 16, 2019 at 2:59pm

I really have no effing clue why the Chicago Park District decided to designate the bike trail as east of Cricket Hill and north of Montrose, when the trail separation project was finished a year or 2 ago. I still believe IMO, that the designated bike trail should be just east of LSD in that area north of Montrose, and that this path shouldn't be designated for pedestrians. Yep, in favor of flipping the designations for which of the 2 paths is for bikes, and for pedestrians, in the area north of Montrose.

Permalink Reply by Phillip Hutchinson on June 17, 2019 at 2:47am

Agree 100%. This section of trail separation doesn't work and should be revised. No one (cyclists or runners) wants to detour around the east side of Cricket Hill, and on weekends that path is full of kids and park users anyways. Even if they flipped the designations it still wouldn't work, you'd just end up with a bunch of runners using the bike trail because they don't want to run all the way around Cricket Hill. 

In defense of the Park District, they are also trying to limit/eliminate the at-grade crossings at Montrose and Wilson (which are super dangerous, especially for bikes) without building new underpasses.  Due to lack of funding, they're stuck with the existing underpasses at Montrose/Wilson, both of which are too far East to be practical for trails running West of Cricket Hill. Even with the current design routing both trails through the Montrose underpass, there are still a lot of runners who cut through the grass and cross at-grade where the old crosswalk used to be. The existing underpass at Wilson is even further east and would be even more difficult to route a Westerly trail back to it and expect any kind of compliance. 

Permalink Reply by Allan on June 28, 2019 at 8:24pm

I forgot about that Montrose underpass, east of LSD. Now I see why the Park District routed the bike trail east of the original path, north of Montrose. I suspect a lot of bikers still use the old route, though.

Permalink Reply by ketoguychicago on June 29, 2019 at 2:18am

Right on both counts Allan.  The trick is that as people lobby for safety solutions and then get them, it is a good idea to abide by those safety solutions, or it all unravels.  We see elsewhere that solutions are created to keep pedestrians and cyclists separate from cars, and then pedestrians separate from cyclists, and then some people just ride in the road anyhow like up around Marine Drive, and all that money, space and effort is for naught.

The more that happens, the less sympathetic the broader public becomes regarding cycling infrastructure. 

 

Permalink Reply by Eric Pounder on May 26, 2019 at 4:42am

Rather than bitch about all the failures with this project, (I'd give it a D+ if it was a planning exercise in my civil engineering class) I'll shine a light.  

The south entrance to the pedestrian underpass at Oak St forces everyone away from the bike lane by removing access on the west side of the tunnel and only allowing it on the east side.  Awesome!

Did they do the same thing on the north access?  No, that would make too much sense.  

Anyway, that's my two cents.

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Permalink Reply by Tooscrapps on May 28, 2019 at 6:17am

The south entrance is a staircase, so it makes sense to only link it (east) to the ped path.

The north entrance is a ramp, which both cyclists and peds use, so it is correctly linked (east and west) to both paths.

Permalink Reply by Phillip Hutchinson on May 30, 2019 at 5:12am

I see a lot of joggers continuing on the bike path in this area to avoid going east of the stairs/ramp area. Your photo captures one doing just that.

I'm not sure if they're just doing this out of habit, because that is how the old trail was aligned, or if they're intentionally avoiding the area around the stairs because it's more crowded? 

Permalink Reply by Brian S on May 30, 2019 at 5:17am

I'd guess that it's a combination of being crowded and also that it introduces 2 turns into their path. Why do either when you can continue on the path you're already on?

Permalink Reply by Kevin Zolkiewicz on May 30, 2019 at 3:41am

The section at Belmont was finally repainted yesterday to fix the lane issue. The arrangement was also changed so that the pedestrian paths now run next to each other closer to the lake. Crews were also still working yesterday afternoon on re-painting other areas of the trail and adding additional bike/ped symbols. 

Permalink Reply by Phillip Hutchinson on May 30, 2019 at 5:07am

Awesome news and hopefully this makes the area function better. 

Permalink Reply by curt(is) locke on June 1, 2019 at 3:20am

Once the temps hit 60 degrees, it's the Stockton / Sheridan / Inner LSD / Marine Drive boogie for me.

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