Lincolnwood Trustees Opt Out of Protected Bike Lanes, Forfeit $2 Million Grant Funding

LINCOLNWOOD, IL — The Lincolnwood Village Board voted to forfeit more than $2 million in grant money to repave Pratt Avenue due to opposition to protected bike lanes.

Construction on the Pratt Lane bicycle lanes project had been due to begin in the spring, five years after the village successfully applied for grants from the Illinois Department of Transportation, which would have made the project effectively free for local taxpayers.

"So essentially, aside from fronting some money, this will ultimately cost the village nothing," John Walsh, the village's public works director said Monday at a special village board meeting.

If village trustees decide to scrap the project and give up the grant money, since protected bike lanes were a condition of the grant's approval, Walsh said the village would be looking to resurface Pratt by 2028 anyway.

"We would relinquish any of the IDOT funding that we have," he said. "And any future improvements, if we don't get additional funding or reapply for some future funding, the improvements would be at 100 percent village cost."

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Mayor Jesal Patel said a cycling route along Pratt Avenue would provide a valuable east-west connection between Caldwell Woods and McCormick Boulevard, which connects with Evanston and Skokie's bike lane network.

"A bike lane and a bike path through the village is what we have been seeking. It's what village residents have been asking for for years, is more more bikeways, and it's also a critical connection for the regional bike paths," Patel said.

"We had approved and adopted these plans, and we were going forward," he said. "But a meeting that we had six weeks ago raised some concerns."

Currently, Pratt Avenue includes two lanes of vehicular traffic with on-street parking on both sides. Some of it includes "sharrows" — the painted indication that bicycles have the right to use the full lane.

According to village staff, a petition opposing protected bike lanes was signed by representatives of 93 households, 12 of which were located along the route of the proposed lane.

At Monday's board meeting, about a half dozen residents spoke out in opposition to the project. They cited the aesthetics of bike lanes, fears of increased congestion, garbage collection, snow plowing and the loss of street parking.

Najia Ahmed, a Pratt Avenue resident and the chair of the village's environmental commission, said some families in her neighborhood have so many cars they cannot fit them in their driveways and need to park them on the street.

"I would really love it if you could keep the parking lane," Ahmed said, arguing against protected bike lanes.

"The driveway is not sufficient, so a lot of people are using that parking lane," she said. "I think it's quite useful to have. We've gotten used to it."

Mary Orth, one of the residents who circulated the petition, which calls for the protected bike lanes to be replaced with painted lanes, said most residents she spoke to had not heard about the project.

"My concern was we would start constructions on Pratt, and everyone would be going, 'What? Why are they digging up Pratt? What's going on? I hadn't have any idea about this,'" Orth said. "There's a huge percentage of people in this village who are still not aware of this plan."

According to village staff, the board first began investigating the feasibility of bike lanes on Pratt Avenue in December 2019. After a January 2020 presentation of options, the board then allocated money to study it into the 2021 budget.

In March 2020, staff applied for an Invest in Cook grant to fund the engineering study and received it later that year. Then, in February 2021, village staff picked Christopher Burke Engineering to lead the project and in June 2022 held a public meeting to present the project's scope, though only nine residents showed up and staff received only four formal comments during the feedback period.

In August 2022, the project received IDOT funding through the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program, or ITEP, program to support non-motorized transportation. Officials awarded a contract last September and were on track to submit pre-final plans next month.

After letters about the project were mailed out to addresses in the project area in March, residents raised concerns at a committee meeting in June, prompting this weeks' special meeting, which was first reported by StreetsBlog Chicago.

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Trustees reached a consensus that bicycle lanes are the third priority behind automobile traffic and maintaining on-street parking spots.

Trustee Atour Sargon said the village should not be bound by the conditions of the grant funding.

"Personally, I think that aesthetic on Pratt, even striping it can really change that look, so I'm open to see what a paved marking would look like and what that would cost us and get feedback from residents at that point, but I think this option three, kind of, not to move forward and to relinquish this IDOT/ITEP funding is our best move forward," Sargon said.

"For me, my preferred method would be to keep the parking on Pratt and see if we can stripe bike lane," she said, "and if not I would not be in favor of doing anything because I think it would really impact Pratt Avenue negatively."

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Only one trustee spoke in favor of protected bike lanes.

Trustee Craig Klatzco said he had been a cyclist for many years and has experienced crashes involving cars. He said a painted line alone — the option favored by the residents petitioning against the protected lane —was unsafe, since delivery vans and trucks park in it and drivers swerve into it.

"If we just paint green lines on there, people will zoom into the green line, and we'll create a problem where they're going to hit somebody. That's how I was hit on a pavement thing, guy came in there, knocked me down off my bicycle," Klatzco said.

"You have to have safety for the bicyclists. They have to share the road with the cars, and it's our responsibility to protect them, [as well] as protect the residents," he added.

The village trustee brought up the 2022 death of 3-year-old Lily Grace, who died after the bike her mother was riding was forced into traffic by a ComEd truck illegally parked in a bike lane.

In Niles Township, in the past month alone, two cyclists have been killed and another has been critical injured in crashes involving cars — all took place in locations without bike lanes.

"If we're going to have a bike lane," Klatzco said, "it has to be a safe bike lane."

Studies in peer-reviewed journals have indicated protected bike lanes are significantly safer — for motorists and pedestrians as well as cyclists.

One showed streets with protected bike lanes had 28 percent fewer injuries per mile than streets without bike infrastructure and a 250 percent increase in riding. Other studies show protected lanes reduce conflicts between riders and motorist better than painted lanes, and that increased usage, in turn, increases safety.