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Today, the bike path is a microcosm of Lincoln Park’s congestion problem, a classic example of how changing lifestyle and recreation trends have outstripped the Park District’s ability to keep up–and why the District needs to do a better job of planning ahead.
On a typical summer day, hordes of cyclists, walkers, joggers and rollerbladers jockey for space on strip of asphalt that is only eight feet wide in some places. The national standard for the width of bike paths is 12 feet.
Most of the time, the conflicts that erupt amount to nothing more than heated words or obscene gestures. Occasionally the results are tragic, as when a 34-year-old Far North Side man, Wlodzimirerz Kowalski, died after colliding with an in-line skater at North Avenue Beach on June 24.
The congestion along this path is significant, and consists of pedestrians, cyclists, skaters, even segways. Several years ago, while living in Chicago, my wife and I witnessed a collision between a bicycle and an in-line skater that, much like the recent accident described in the article, resulted in the death of the cyclist.
I’ve often referred to Chicago’s lakefront pathway as an example of the the potential dangers of multi-use pathways. The narrow width of the pathway and the sheer number of people using it in different ways at different speeds and levels of attention increases these dangers. As with sidewalks, I don’t feel that putting bicycles on the same pathways as pedestrians is safe or logical. I would think that a pathway that separates, as Randy Neufeld, of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, is quoted in the article, “the wheels from the heels” is the best way to reduce congestion and decrease the potential risks of using the pathway.
At Michigan State University, where I work, there are a number of “shared paths” being installed throughout campus as a way to clearly separate bicycle and pedestrian traffic, improving safety for both. I think that the city of Chicago could follow a plan similar to this one, making the lakefront a better and safer place for all visitors.
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