posted by chicago pop
One of the lesser-known barriers cutting off Hyde Park from the rest of the world is the absence of a sidewalk along Cornell Avenue as it runs along Burnham Park from 49th to 47th Streets.
This leafy stretch, which in summer offers the rudiments of a Madison County fantasy to motorists, has also acted as a green buffer zone between the Indian Village area and 47th Street. As anyone who drives this road can tell you, the lack of a sidewalk forces pedestrians to walk in the street year round, sharing space with vehicles often moving at high speed in both directions.
Laying down a sidewalk along this stretch is therefore a long-overdue but major improvement in pedestrian safety, walkability, and connectedness with the rest of Chicago. Bravo to whatever arm of City bureaucracy (or perhaps the 4th Ward Alderman?) is making this happen -- if they can do this, surely they can fix a bus stop that doubles as a bottomless pit!
This leafy stretch, which in summer offers the rudiments of a Madison County fantasy to motorists, has also acted as a green buffer zone between the Indian Village area and 47th Street. As anyone who drives this road can tell you, the lack of a sidewalk forces pedestrians to walk in the street year round, sharing space with vehicles often moving at high speed in both directions.
Laying down a sidewalk along this stretch is therefore a long-overdue but major improvement in pedestrian safety, walkability, and connectedness with the rest of Chicago. Bravo to whatever arm of City bureaucracy (or perhaps the 4th Ward Alderman?) is making this happen -- if they can do this, surely they can fix a bus stop that doubles as a bottomless pit!
7 comments:
This is 100% the work of Alderman Preckwinkle, with appropriate and needed support from the Chicago Park District and various City of Chicago departments. It is funded by Aldermanic Menu (discretionary) funds and has been in the works for a few years.
I guess she used some of the $129,000 she didn't waste on subsidizing parking lots in her ward, then.
Good point!
This is a long-awaited and much needed improvement. Alderman Preckwinkle knows the right way to spend her ward's menu money—on projects having long-term public benefits; not on vote-grubbing parking freebies that divert money from what's really needed.
This is great! Last summer I was on the bike path near 47th street when a family of German tourists stopped me because they were trying to figure out how to get to the Ramada. I did the best I could but felt like telling them "you can't get there from here. (without getting killed by traffic)." Now you can.
That was Hairston who blew money on parking spaces, not Preckwinkle... or did I miss something?
Oh wait, I reread the comments and now I get it. Nevermind! :-)
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