This has been a summer of discontent for Chicago cyclists.
On the morning of the crash Kuivinen, 20, had been biking southeast in a green-painted stretch of the Milwaukee Avenue bike lanes in West Town, police said. Near 874 N. Milwaukee, truck driver Antonio Navarro, 37, veered into the bike lane while making a right turn onto southbound Racine Avenue, striking and dragging Kuivinen.
Reached by phone the day after the crash, 27th Ward alderman Walter Burnett said a Chicago Department of Transportation official told him the department was investigating the TOD bike lane blockage and would have a report by the end of the day. Although I made several requests to CDOT for an update, as of publication the department still had not provided one.
However, the walkway eliminated the space southeast-bound cyclists used to ride in, forcing them to squeeze between a wall and car traffic. After Streetsblog publicized the problem, CDOT addressed the issue by stripping parking from the other side of the street and moving the center line of the road to widen the downtown-bound lane, but it’s still a somewhat tight fit for bike riders.
Park District spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner assured me that the agency is on top of the issue. “The Chicago Park District will provide more advance signage in Lakefront Trail improvement zones,” she said, adding that residents can check the Park District’s website and follow it on social media with the hashtag #ChiLFT for trail updates.
In October, Active Trans will compile the results and submit them to Mayor Emanuel and aldermen. “We hope to encourage city officials and staff to take another look at this issue and see if more can’t be done,” Merrell said.
