The Monday before school started, 65 new middle-schoolers and a handful of parents gathered at elementary schools across Oak Park to practice their new commute by bike. The Middle School Connections Ride, a parent-led event organized by local advocacy group Bike Walk Oak Park (BWOP), sent riders from Beye, Holmes, Lincoln, Longfellow and Whittier out to Brooks and Julian, with a popsicle break at the halfway point. Organizers spent the summer scouting routes and mapping safe crossings at busy streets like Washington and Ridgeland.
My kids were too young to participate, but I was eager to hear how it went, especially with so much new infrastructure in place. I talked to organizers and parents in the weeks after. BWOP leader Sylvia Schweri told me turnout was good enough that they’re already planning to repeat it next year. For the kids, she said, biking with friends was its own reward, while parents were excited to help their children become more independent.
One parent told me that when she moved here in 2018, it seemed like a kid on a bike getting hit by a car in the first weeks of school was an annual event. She credits the bike infrastructure that’s gone in since for making those stories rare instead of routine.
The most visible of those changes are the bike boulevards. Another parent shared that she now feels comfortable riding the whole village with her 7-year-old. More people riding the same routes means drivers know to expect bikes there; it also builds real community. This summer my family biked the boulevards to camp every morning, regularly joining up with other riders. My kids loved being part of a daily “bike parade.” An unexpected bonus was seeing tweens navigating on their own. Facebook will tell you Oak Park kids don’t wear helmets or follow the rules of the road. The ones we rode behind all summer did both.
But a boulevard is only as good as its crossings. More than half of our schools have boundaries that require kids to cross Ridgeland, a street many cyclists and pedestrians dread. I have neighbors who biked confidently in Chicago but stayed off their bikes here, nervous about crossing Ridgeland. The right-turn-only lanes are a big change, but they’re what makes the crossing safe. You’re no longer gambling on whether a left-turning driver sees you. The design steers each of us toward different streets: walkers and bikers toward calmer crossings, drivers toward the streets now meant for through traffic. Living east of Ridgeland, I regularly cross it on foot, by bike and by car — and now I have my preferred route for each.
Everyone has an opinion on the new bike infrastructure: too much for some, too little for others. For me, I’ll take what I can get. Oak Park is an old village with narrow streets; it’s impossible to make everyone happy. But none of that changes what the Middle School Connections Ride showed us. We all win when middle-schoolers can bike on their own. The kids learn to ride safely and feel empowered. Parents win by not having to schlep them around anymore. And drivers win too. Each of those 65 riders is one less car idling outside Brooks and Julian on a weekday morning.
Nicole Chavas is a board member of Bike Walk Oak Park.