Spiritus Ranae

The following is a Letter to the Editor of the Chicago Tribune in response to a call issued by ActiveTrans telling us that the Trib is looking for letters on bike lanes with a deadline of... you guessed it! Tomorrow!

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Chicago needs a connected, city-wide network of bike lanes and safe pedestrian crossings, and we won't get one as long as every mile of it depends on a single alderman's mood.

Right now, aldermanic prerogative means each of the city's 50 wards decides on its own whether to build, expand, or block this infrastructure. Wealthier, whiter North Side wards are on their fourth or fifth round of bike lane upgrades. Much of the South and West Side remains a dangerous void, with arterial streets that have no safe way to cross town on foot or by bike at all. This matters for two reasons.

First, arterial infrastructure doesn't just serve the people who live in that neighborhood. It serves commuters, delivery workers, students, and visitors crossing the whole city, whether they're walking or biking. A bike lane or a safer crosswalk on Western or Archer is citywide infrastructure, not a neighborhood amenity, and treating it as one alderman's call guarantees a patchwork network that fails everyone trying to get across town safely.

Second, ward-by-ward control has turned bike lanes into a political weapon. As lanes finally arrive, slowly, in long-underinvested communities, opportunistic challengers are using them as a wedge issue against sitting aldermen. In the 12th Ward, a candidate using MAGA-style politics is campaigning against bike infrastructure to chip away at a popular progressive incumbent. Much of this opposition leans on small business owners worried about losing a handful of parking spots. I understand the anxiety, but it's a shame to see local businesses pitted against pedestrian and cyclist safety, especially when studies show they help local business thrive.

Also, the climate dimension is more urgent by the day. At a moment when the Trump administration is actively rolling back sustainability, cities have to pick up the slack. A real network for pedestrians and cyclists is one of the cheapest, fastest ways Chicago can cut emissions and car dependency, but only if we build it as a system rather than 50 disconnected fragments.

Past reform efforts made headway on permits and licensing, but stalled on zoning. I don't expect this Council to give up power over street infrastructure either. That's exactly why this needs saying: a real network requires a citywide plan, not 50 separate referendums on whether any alderman feels like building it.

Chicago can't walk or bike its way into the future one ward at a time.

The following is a Letter to the Editor of the Chicago Tribune in response to: this editorial whining about bike lanes

EDIT: This letter appeared in the Tribune on May 7, 2026.

The Tribune's concern for driver convenience and business loading zones on Archer is understandable, if predictable. But calling Archer "a bizarre candidate" for bike infrastructure misreads the geography entirely. The neighborhoods Archer passes through — Brighton Park, Gage Park, McKinley Park, and Archer Heights — are threaded with rail lines, an interstate highway, a canal, and intermodal yards that make movement on foot or bike among these neighborhoods nearly impossible except along Archer itself. It isn't one option among several. For many residents, it's the only continuous surface route connecting their neighborhoods. The question was never whether to put bike infrastructure there — it was how.

The editorial accuses cycling advocates of "moral righteousness," and the charge may be fair in some cases. What it misses is that the other side of this argument has a body count. Fifteen pedestrians and cyclists have been killed along this very corridor in recent years. Each of those deaths is a policy outcome, not an act of God. When we treat the conditions that produce that toll as the baseline against which "improvements" are measured, we've already made a moral judgment; we've just made it quietly. Disagreeing about parking spaces while that death toll stands unchallenged is not a position above the fray. It's a choice — and one worth owning honestly.

I just sent a version of this email to the two people running for the Democrat nomination for the Illinois General Assembly 1st District. My district, the 1st includes a stretch of Archer Avenue in Chicago under state jurisidiction which has proven so far very difficult to improve for bicycle and pedestrian safety.

Greetings,

I am a voter in the 1st District and am trying to decide how to vote in the upcoming primary. After reviewing your web site, I still have a few questions about transportation and street safety, and I’d be grateful for your responses:

What is your position on protected bike lanes and other street safety projects in the 1st District, especially when there is neighborhood controversy about parking or traffic?

How would you balance the needs of drivers, pedestrians, transit riders, and people who bike when the city proposes street redesigns in our area?

Do you support expanding low‑stress options for people to walk and bike on the Southwest Side and, if so, what role do you think the state should play?

Thank you for your time and for your service to our community.

Sincerely,

ACTUAL NAME HERE