Evanston City Council members approved Monday an application with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency (CMAP) that would fund up to 80% of the estimated eligible construction and engineering costs.
Since merchants and others raised concerns
He said the city is exploring other options, too, including freeing up as many as 20 spaces at the city’s municipal lot on Chicago Avenue just south of Dempster Street and establishing resident-only parking in areas at the southern end of Chicago, where a recent study found only 30% to 40% of the users had Evanston license plates.
Officials maintained in their presentation the changes would bring the total parking spaces along or near the route to roughly 250 — actually more than is currently available.
The total number of existing on-street spaces lost would be 66, they said, compared to the 75 to 100 spaces a group of merchants had estimated would be lost in their Nov. 13 letter to the city.
“We are still in the design stages,” Nagar stressed. “The construction is not going to start until 2027, so we have enough time to work through the logistics to make sure everyone’s needs are accommodated.”
Roughly 30 merchants had warned in a Nov. 13 letter to officials that between 75 and 100 parking spaces on the east side of the street would be lost under the project, making access much more difficult to nearly 200 businesses on Chicago Avenue.
A second letter signed by about 30 individuals and members of small and medium-sized cycling groups joined the businesses in their concern, and suggested that a better solution would be adding the lane to either Hinman Avenue and/or Judson Avenue as an alternative route.
Developer Kent Swanson, a representative of the Main-Dempster Mile retail businesses, viewed officials’ openness to make changes as a positive step forward.
“I think the city is ready to dig into the details for the unique needs of many businesses,” he said, asked for a comment after the meeting. “The size of the attendance [at Tuesday’s meeting] is an indication of the need for better communication on this important project. Bike infrastructure and retail business success can work together.”
Parking situation already ‘very tight, very difficult’ Several community members at the meeting, though, continued to express concerns about the impact of the lane on parking in the area.
Pam Kendall, co-owner of cloth + home, a boutique reopened earlier this year at 1503 Chicago Ave., said the business would still experience a net loss of eight existing spaces, “and you’re really not addressing that question,” she told officials.
Several residents from the Courts of Evanston, a residential development located at the far south end of the project between Keeney Street and South Boulevard, questioned the accuracy of staff’s parking estimates based on surveys they had taken.
Laura Kushner, one of the speakers from that building, told officials she’s counted 31 spaces that would be lost between Keeney and South Boulevard, not the 22 mentioned in the city’s most recent report.
situation. She noted that the area already has a substantial number of residents living in apartments or condos on Hinman Avenue and Keeney with no designated parking spaces.
A new 60-unit residential building planned for South Boulevard “is going to make our parking situation, which is already very tight, even more difficult,” she said, inviting Third Ward Council Member Melissa Wynne to take a walk with her to view the situation.
Wynne, who said she would be willing to do so, noted that she previously had a proposal in front of the City Council to change parking on Keeney to resident only, but had to pull back “after I heard too much from neighbors who did not want that.”
The 60-unit building Kushner referred to is a Housing Authority of Cook County affordable housing project that also includes a private developer and was previously approved by City Council.
“The studies indicate that folks who move into affordable housing units do not always have cars,” Wynne added, “so that is not going to add an additional burden on the neighborhood.”
She said that in the parking survey officials conducted in October in that area, nearly 70% of the parkers were found to be non-residents. If the city was to establish South Boulevard as resident only, that would provide the needed parking, she maintained.
Kushner, who said she brought the issue to the attention of Wynne roughly a year and a half ago, said many of the Courts of Evanston residents have to have plumbers or electricians out at their homes, “and there’s no place to park for them as it is. And if we take away this, there really is no place for them to park.”
Nagar: Cyclists sought ‘a direct route’
John Kennedy, one of the candidates running to replace Wynne as the ward’s council member (Shawn Iles, another candidate, was also in attendance at the meeting but didn’t speak), asked officials whether they had considered using Hinman as an alternative route for the protected bike lane.
The merchants, as well as some cyclists, in another letter had suggested Hinman as well as Judson as low-traffic alternate routes.
Responding, Nagar said that when officials held their public meeting on the project in 2021, people “did not support anything other than Chicago Avenue. They wanted a direct route from Howard going north.” (He didn’t specify whether a different route was presented as an alternative to Chicago Avenue at that 2021 meeting, which was lightly attended with the city still deep in COVID-19.)
Protected bike lane receives strong support Members of the local cycling community were strong in their support of the Chicago Avenue project in testimony at Tuesday’s meeting.
Roughly 250 residents have signed a letter to City Council from the Evanston Transit Alliance group, which advocates for improved bicycle, pedestrian and public transit connectivity in the city and other neighboring communities.
The group’s letter asserts that “crash data proves Chicago Ave is dangerous” and that “cyclists and pedestrians account for 63% of all serious injuries,” including numerous hit-and-runs that “have caused life-altering critical injuries and deaths.”
“Due to higher reliance on public transit, walking, and cycling, lower income groups are disproportionately impacted by traffic violence,” the letter continues. “Separating bike traffic from vehicular lanes improves travel conditions for drivers and will discourage sidewalk riding making pedestrians safer. Traffic calming will reduce speeding, decreasing both the likelihood and severity of crashes. After a summer where suburbs surrounding Evanston saw multiple cyclists killed, choosing to maintain the ‘status quo’ on Chicago Ave would be needlessly accepting future injuries or fatalities which would inevitably continue to occur.”
Cyclist: ‘I just want to go places safely’
Several residents at the meeting spoke individually about their hopes for the protected lane.
Sarah Hanson, a resident of Judson Avenue, spoke of the need for response to issues such as climate change: “If we can all make efforts to use our cars less and walk and bike more to get to businesses, I think Evanston could be a really cool city, like Amsterdam and Copenhagen.
Gabe Weiss said he uses his bike all the time to do errands and shop at local stores. One time, he said he was hit by a car in an accident that was entirely preventable. “Infrastructure is the way to go,” he added.
Kevin Bodkin, another speaker and father of two young kids, said biking along Chicago Avenue under present conditions can be terrifying. “I just want to go places safely,” he said.
Olin Wilson-Thomas, a sophomore at Evanston Township High School, said he personally paid visits on Monday to some of the businesses who had opposed the project. When he explained to them the plan would take away 60 or so parking spaces, he said the response he got was, “Wow, that’s not so bad.” “If I had explained to them the plan,” he said confidently, “I’m sure that they would have been on board. … I’d be surprised if people could find one study where, after the bike lane’s put in, business owners oppose it … because similar projects for this have done so well.”
Cesar Marron, the owner of Sketchbook Brewing Company at 821 Chicago Ave., noted the business frequently hosts 80 to 100 people with only four parking spots in front. “So they’re walking. If I had it my way, I would close Chicago Avenue completely,” he said to applause.
Long process ‘one of the unfortunate features of doing really good projects’ The bike lane aside, the Chicago Avenue Corridor has aged, said City Engineer Lara Biggs: “It definitely needs that TLC. And we’re not just talking about the bike lane [or] just the street resurfacing, but the lighting, which is not LED or modernized in any way.”
Delayed public engagement is “one of the unfortunate features of doing really good projects,” said City Engineer Lara Biggs. As for the bike lane itself, a multi-modal plan for the city has been in place since the early 2000s that indicates Chicago Avenue as a bike route, she said. There’s also a city policy “that says we must consider all the uses of a street when we do a street improvement, particularly on arterial streets like Chicago Avenue, which includes pedestrians and bicyclists,” Biggs noted.
