Update! Support the North Branch Trail Extension
With the new Cook County Commissioner redistricting, the Old Edgebrook neighborhood now falls into Commissioner Bridget Gainer's district. She has received letters from the Edgebrook Community Association and the neighbors of Old Edgebrook to put pressure to stop the trail extension. Construction is scheduled to begin November 30, 2015 and we need Commissioner Gainer to hear from supporters of the trail. Please consider calling or writing Commissioner Gainer an email stating your support, what the trail means to you and if you live in her district. It’s okay if you don’t live in her district, but it’s important to hear from the district constituents if they are supporters, find the district map here. Email her at Info@BridgetGainer.com or call her office at (312) 603-4210 to share your support of the trail extension. Please forward this email to fellow trail supporters.
Thank you for your help and support! Hopefully this time next year I will be seeing you at the trail ribbon cutting.
Not familiar with the project? Check it out here.
Thank you!!!!
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Eli on
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There was no community input before the trail design was finalized
This is a straightforward falsehood. There have been numerous well-publicized public meetings over the years, many taking place long before the design was finalized. Just a few of them:
Your own link describes how the plan was modified to address concerns raised in these meetings, which have now dragged on for years. It's time to begin work on this long- and eagerly-awaited work, which will make it much safer to reach the trail for those of us who now have to bare-knuckle it on the six-lane, no-shoulder, high-speed section of Devon that surrounds the current southern terminus of the trail.
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Permalink Reply by Jared on
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Where are you accessing the trail? The trail starts near Devon/Caldwell, or at least part of it does that meets up with the main trail.
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Permalink Reply by Petra Blix on
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I second Petra's request to have the incorrect information removed. Kindy Kruller's statement is false, and the Old Edgebrook Community has many letters and emails to prove it. Quite a few have been addressed to her directly. I resent having the painstaking communication efforts that I've helped organize over the last 18 months mischaracterized.
Exactly as Petra says, members of the Old Edgebrook Community have expressed opposition to the trail crossing over Louise and Prescott. We have NOT contacted the FPDCC against the trail extension. We have asked that several alternate routes that do not cross our residential streets and only points of entrance/exit be considered. Our most recent letter to the FPDCC, which was submitted with about 50 signatures, can be viewed along with alternate route proposals here (page takes a minute or two to load due to image files): https://goo.gl/9NQSMX - Please see for yourself.
Personally, I am not against the trail expansion. I believe that bike riders who will use it (my family included) should be concerned that the only traffic safety study here was conducted on a weekend, mid-morning, rather than during a week day rush hour.
It's so telling that the FPDCC's current plan would install an on-demand traffic light for *their* staff and volunteers to enter/exit the (typically desolate) Mathew Bieszczat Resource Center immediately up the road on Central, but not to allow more than 100 tax payers in Old Edgebrook to safely enter/exit their homes every day.
It's easy to label something a NIMBY concern when it isn't your loved ones and neighbors who will be at greatest risk for injury by something. The current plan on the West side of Central is an accident waiting to happen.
Lainie Castle-Cimfel
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Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on
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Permalink Reply by mike w. on
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It seems to me that rather than "your loved ones and neighbors" being the ones "at greatest risk for injury by something"(and what even does 'or something' mean?) by a bike trail crossing these residential streets, but rather trail users who may be at risk of being run down by "your loved ones and neighbors" as they drive across the trail. Just sayin'.
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This is the concern the community has raised with the Forest Preseve District. The bike trail crossing these streets is a safety hazard for bike riders and drivers. Elderly drivers, new drivers, landscape trucks, FedEx, UPS, or drivers unfamiliar with the area may not see bike riders crossing the street because the trail is 70 feet west of Central in the woods. The FPD refuses to have an open dialogue with the community to discuss these safety concerns despite written requests.
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Permalink Reply by Harry Lee on
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There have been numerous discussions with the community, as evidenced a response to your previous post, and from this published report from the local newspapers it appears that you yourself even attended one of them, so I find it a bit disingenuous that you say the FPD refuses to have an open dialog. The safety concerns appear to have been addressed by adding "[s]top signs for for bicyclists [...] where [the trail] would cross Louise and Prescot, and the trail would be located adjacent to the street to allow for better sight lines for drivers" so it doesn't seem like you're being completely straightforward here.
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I don't need to have been there to read reports that claim that speakers were shouting over each other and challenging the forest preserve representatives- it appears that the opportunity for an open dialog was there, but some chose not to have a civil dialog. By all accounts, it does appear that the concerns of the residents of Old Edgebrook have been heard.
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I WAS at the meeting, and the Forest Preserve representatives were responsive and listed to both side. It was an open dialog.
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Perhaps the drivers who may be crossing those trail intersections need to learn to drive with more care and awareness. The way this argument has been framed seems to put the responsibility for not getting clobbered on the trail users.
Seriously? These are residential streets with 25mph speed limits. These are certainly not the most dangerous intersections to be crossing on a bike or on foot. Surely you and your neighbours can avoid running people over in the crossings? What is the daily traffic count through these intersections? It can't really be quite that high.
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The trail could not be built on the opposite side of Central without adding at least $1 million to the project due the need to reconfigure 7 other traffic lights to facilitate its placement there. The CDOT (not the FPD) recommended the traffic light be installed outside of the volunteer center, rather than at Prescott or Louise, as it is further from the ones that traffic on Central already has to deal with lights/stops at Devon, Caldwell and the Metra tracks/Lehigh. Both CDOT and IDOT (not the FPD) considered and rejected several other locations for the stoplight and crossing, based on published reports that I've linked to elsewhere.
It seems like everything that has been discussed here has already been taken into consideration and it seems like a waste of time to have to revisit it all again. It sounds like you live in a great area that can sometimes be a pain to get out of- the addition of a few dozen cyclists on most days of the week is not going to make it any more of pain (and the stop light might actually help more often than not) and making it less of a pain is not within the scope of the trail extension.
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