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Permalink Reply by David P. on April 4, 2013 at 6:01pm

Taking Belmont over to Oak Park Avenue and then south to Oak Park is fine. You can then go slightly east (say, on Jackson) to Central. You can take Wilson or whatever you like from Andersonville to the NW side. I use Belmont and OP Ave to get to Oak Park from Avondale, where I live. Addison works, too.

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Permalink Reply by OLB 0.1 on April 5, 2013 at 4:17am

Narragansett has a bike lane and is 1/2 mile East of OP avenue. However, there is a lot more traffic. During rush hour, OP Ave is a much more pleasant drive. Non rush hour, Narragansett works well enough. South of North Ave is also very busy on OP Ave and I can see how h' may have experience with rude drivers.

I tend to prefer Armitage for going East-West, but I don't much further north often, so I don't know how some of the other street like Belmont compare.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on April 5, 2013 at 5:23am

I've often used Wrightwood for my east-east trip.  If you've never tried it, note that it makes a slight north-south jog at Cicero.  My experience has been consistent with OLB's, and I've used either Narragansett or Oak Park.  Austin and Oak Park are both on the narrow side for the volume of traffic they carry.  Austin has a bus route on all this north-south section, but Oak Park doesn't (Pace route starts south of North Ave.).

OLB 0.1 said:

Narragansett has a bike lane and is 1/2 mile East of OP avenue. However, there is a lot more traffic. During rush hour, OP Ave is a much more pleasant drive. Non rush hour, Narragansett works well enough. South of North Ave is also very busy on OP Ave and I can see how h' may have experience with rude drivers.

I tend to prefer Armitage for going East-West, but I don't much further north often, so I don't know how some of the other street like Belmont compare.

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Lee on April 5, 2013 at 8:59am

thanks everyone, I got about a month to decide....Jerry

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Lee on April 5, 2013 at 4:49pm

 

  I am familar with wrightwood, its good...I guess all the suggestions avoided going any further south than armitage so far. When I commute to Franklin park, I use  Argyle, sunnyside and Berteau. and other nearby east west streets. I was originally wondering if taking Lake st, division, Chicago, Madison as an west bound was favorable. I guess swing west on the north side is it. While in Oak Park I visit the Hobbit house and the planet of the Apes house.

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Permalink Reply by Alex Z on April 7, 2013 at 7:04am

If you were originally thinking about going further south before going west, I'll throw in a recommendation for Washington, which I've many times taken westbound from Damen to Oak Park. Very nice bike lane.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on April 7, 2013 at 11:51pm

I'd agree with that.

h' 1.0 said:

I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with Oak Park Ave.  If I had to guess I'd say the volume of traffic is consistently very high in both directions, the width requires cars to cross the center line in order to pass a cyclist safely, and for some reason drivers there don't seem to believe that they're legally allowed to cross the center line even when there's no oncoming traffic.

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