Sometimes biking in Oak Park isn’t enough and you find yourself venturing into the land beyond. Last Saturday was a great day for a fall bike ride — overcast and cool but not too cold.
My destination was an old turn-of-the-century bungalow in Ukranian Village on the city’s near West Side. The bungalow has been lovingly and thoughtfully brought into the 21st century. The owner provided a fun and informative tour of an old home that now features triple-pane windows throughout, a heat-pump clothes dryer and heat-pump water heater, well-insulated and tightly sealed walls, a solar hot-water heating system and photovoltaic panels on the roof, plus two charging stations in the garage. We learned it is possible to make a very old house very green.
But better than the house tour was the ride there. Who would have thought it possible to ride from east central Oak Park to roughly Damen and Augusta in the city entirely on bike lanes? My route, jogging east and then north, east and north, took me from Austin and Lake to Central Park to Franklin to Homan to Augusta to Damen. Check it out on Google maps. Other than two blocks on Homan, it was all bike lanes and for about half of the route I was protected from car traffic by a physical barrier.
It was a great ride, 12 miles there and back. Chicago is a good decade ahead of Oak Park in terms of safe bike and pedestrian infrastructure and it was fun to see firsthand what they’re doing over there.
Oak Park is moving in the right direction but has a long way to go. Imagine a family of four biking to the library or one of the swimming pools or the Lake Theatre and feeling as safe on bikes as they do in their car.
Hopefully the current on-going bike study and the Vision Zero initiative will result in some real progress toward making Oak Park safe for bikers and walkers of all ages and abilities.
Karl Lauger
Oak Park