Bike Planning for a
Hopeful Future
It was hard to be
hopeful in 2020, with one crisis after another fighting for our attention:
COVID-19, climate change, the financial crisis, and systemic racism.
Additionally, quarantining may be testing our stress and general health from
lack of social contact and exercise. But as the former Mayor of Chicago Rahm
Emanuel said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” By that
reasoning, we see these crises in this era as ripe with immense opportunity.
What
does bike transit have to do with any of this? Imagine if we could safely
traverse our lakeside communities from the Wisconsin border to Indiana via
trails and bike lanes. Workers could get to jobs, students to schools, shoppers
to our businesses – without adding to crowded roads and carbon emissions.
Low-cost
mobility is a key component of reducing barriers between communities and
permitting the flow of commerce, contributions, and equity through our region.
Regional active transit is possible now with the exception of our area:
Evanston, Rogers Park, and Wilmette. We are a regional road block and this is
where the trails in our area end: The Green Bay Trail, The Lakefront Trail, The
North Shore Channel Trail, Sheridan Road lanes, and so on. This is why the
Evanston Transit Alliance was formed – to bridge the gaps in our area’s trail
network.
How
did we get here?
It’s
no accident that communities have been laid out with barriers to the flow of
citizens. Historically, suburbs had been designed as communities separated from
the perceived threat of the urban masses. Barriers have been built to resist
the easy flow of people rather than encourage it. Consider the southern border
of Evanston along the lakefront – a cemetery wall, busy Sheridan Road, a narrow
distressed sidewalk, and a row of boulders – as a clear example of a city
designed to discourage bike and pedestrian transit.
Daniel
Burnham, famous Evanston resident and coauthor of the Chicago Plan, wrote
before moving to Evanston in 1886, “I can no longer bear to have my children in
the streets of Chicago”. Those were different times and we perhaps have changed
our attitudes toward restricting opportunity and mobility today.
If
we are now more enlightened and fighting for equity, embracing fitness and
active transit, and a cleaner environment, then we can see the problems that
our barriers and dead ends cause. Recently we’ve become aware that we want
front-line workers to have easy access to work, and we want everyone to access
parks for walking, running, biking, and playing.
The
good news is that there are trail connection opportunities in plain sight. In
this series of articles, the ETA would like to present a trail connection as it
relates to each specific crisis.
Chapter 2: The MeTrail Addresses the Equity Crisis
In a recent Bloomberg
article, Marcus C. Mundy, Executive Director of the Portland-based alliance
Coalition of Communities of Color, wrote “Policies as mundane as infrastructure
and accessibility represent the next frontier in our struggle. The fight for
fairness and equity lives in our tax, social, and urban policies, perhaps even
more than in our words and rhetoric. While not glamorous, these policies offer
communities of color the access to education and economic opportunity to lift
themselves up, the benefits of which pave a path to higher economic status and
build political power that is desperately lacking.”
Locally, a recent
eye-opening story published by Active Transit Alliance disclosed that Metra
ridership is down 90% six months into the pandemic and traditional suburbanites
commuting downtown may not soon return. Metra acknowledges a need to change to
survive and are discussing fare options, scheduling alternatives, and other
changes. How to provide transit to the essential workers still traveling
downtown for work now, and for others in the future?
An overlooked opportunity is
the vacant third rail line running seven miles south from the Wilmette/Evanston
border to Bryn Mawr Avenue in Chicago along the elevated Metra tracks.
We like to call it the
MeTrail.
We believe this vacant space
could be transformed into a parallel bike and walking trail providing an
elevated connection from the Green Bay Trail and ending near the Lakefront
Trail. In pleasant weather, bikers could commute safely without confronting
auto traffic. In foul weather, these commuters could jump on the Metra.
It’s a combination that
rivals peanut butter and chocolate. Clearly, it would draw new riders to Metra
as the route passes through diverse and high density neighborhoods in Evanston,
Rogers Park, and further south. An off-road trail would also give new bikers
incentive to try bike commuting while having a reliable backup plan available.
This is a transformational
opportunity by converting a portion of the unused Metra corridor – currently a
wall dividing neighborhoods – into an attractive, healthy resource which
bridges regional barriers and brings citizens together. Even better, existing bike
corridors at ground level are ready on multiple streets in Chicago (Howard,
Touhy, Morse, and Pratt) and in Evanston (Oakton, Main, and Church). The CTA
and Divvy stations already exist along the same train line, too. ETA proposes
weaving a new connection by using infrastructure already in place to bring
accessible transit to people of all colors and walks of life.
Conclusion
Through
this series of articles attempt to draw multiple connections between each of
our current crises and a corresponding trail link. Clearly, trails are not
cure-alls to our ills, but each link explored here could be a local ingredient
in capitalizing our existing assets.
As infrastructure investments materialize, we need to make sure it
targets inequity, health and environmental concerns. New bike lanes provide a
steady stream of customers, allowing existing businesses to thrive. They also
provide elegant solutions to connect neighbors with healthy options and new
means to travel throughout our region.
We
at Evanston Transit Alliance see these connections as a means to build a better
life for everyone. Join us!
Participate in the Movement:
· Let your Aldermen, Representatives, and Mayor
know what you value.
· Ask candidates for
upcoming local elections about their plans to improve our trail network. If
they don’t know, share this series of articles with them.
· Follow the ETA Facebook
page to help us move forward, to ride with us next year, and find out more.
· Join Go Evanston for
safer streets.
· Join one of our partners
like Bike Wilmette or Citizens for a Greener Evanston.
· Join a local equity
movement.
· Read the City of
Evanston Climate Action and Resistance Plan.
Evanston
Transit Alliance members are John Fervoy, Steve Kismohr, Mike Moran, Jeff
Balch, Jeff Axelrod, and Reuben Perelman.
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