Just southeast of Oak Street Beach, there’s a bend in the Lakefront Trail where it turns south, hugging Lake Shore Drive. As you head downtown, there’s a wall on your right, and the path’s concrete surface slopes down toward the water’s edge, where there’s a sheer drop of several feet into Lake Michigan.
Convinced by what he saw farther north that the curve would be ice free, he confidently rounded the bend at a high speed. Then he looked down and saw he was entering a long, slippery stretch. He realized he had to pump his brakes. “As I did, I noticed the wheels start to slide,” he wrote in an e-mail. “My body and bike tilted sideways. Shit!”
In addition to the flyover, the city recently completed the $31.5 million Fullerton Revetment project, which built 5.8 acres of new lakefront parkland at Fullerton Avenue, and relocated a section of the trail so it’s less exposed to waves.
—Cyclist Joe Deceault
Building a seawall at the edge of the path near Oak Street might be a potential solution to that problem, but such a change to the lakefront may require approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The corps might be open to such a project if it was initiated by the city or the Park District, says Lynne Whelan, spokeswoman for the corps’ Chicago office.
John Greenfield edits the transportation news website Streetsblog Chicago.
