The good news: The Chicago Department of Transportation has largely completed a 1.5-mile Complete Streets project on 24th Street/Boulevard between Pulaski Road and California Avenue in Little Village, including protected bike lanes.

The bad news: Longtime residents and advocates of sustainable transportation say the project’s implementation will bring significant drawbacks, including drainage problems and a lack of comprehensive protection for bike lanes.

Here’s a summary of the project, according to CDOT. On the one-way section of eastbound 24th Street between Pulaski and Marshall, the department has marked a two-way bike lane. This makes westbound biking legal and more visible to other road users, making it safer. The speed limit has been lowered to 20 mph. “This route connects several key neighborhood destinations, including Lazaro Cardenas Elementary School, Farragut Career Academy, and John Spry Community School,” CDOT says.

The department has installed protected bike lanes on the short stretch of 24th Boulevard between Marshall and California.

They also installed a raised crosswalk in the middle of the block in front of Saucedo Academy, 2850 W. 24th Blvd.

That all sounds good, doesn’t it? But Laila and Dan Korn say the new project is much better in theory than in reality. The couple lives in a building called The Hub, located near the corner of 24th and Marshall Boulevard. They founded the cooperative in 2005 with other pedestrian, bicycle and public transit activists they met at the monthly Chicago Critical Mass bike rides.

The Korns say they have watched for years from their home as drivers speed around the sharp curve where Marshall Boulevard becomes 24th Boulevard. When 24th Boulevard meets California Avenue, it turns south and is then known as California Boulevard.

They’ve watched CDOT replace a guardrail at the southwest corner of Marshall and 24th Boulevard “several times” after drivers who misjudged their speed on the curve crashed into the guardrail, Laila said. And it was dangerous for families and students to cross 24th Boulevard east of Marshall when going to and from Saucedo Academy. It was also difficult to cross Marshall to get to Spry Community School to the west.

Dan Korn recently posted on Facebook that drivers have long used this stretch as a high-speed corridor. “They call it the ‘2900 Expressway’ (an indication that Marshall is 2900 W.), as the run of 24th, Marshall and Sacramento (in Douglass Park, a few blocks north of 24th.) Boulevards have fewer traffic lights and stop signs than California Avenue and people tend to drive fast.”

So the Korns and their neighbors were pleased that the city was implementing more traffic calming measures in the area to encourage safer speeds and protect pedestrians and cyclists. But Dan wrote, “I give them a B for effort and a C for execution.”

Dan said CDOT has added curb extensions to most of the Marshall crossings over the past year, “which in itself is great because it shortens the length of the crossing for pedestrians.” He added that the department has added more visible markings to the two crosswalks on either side of the 24th/Marshall curve, which are assisted by school crossing guards during the school year.

The new mid-block crosswalk at Saucedo, raised to sidewalk level, makes it easier for pedestrians to cross. It also helps increase the speed of drivers approaching Marshall Curve from the east, reducing the risk of accidents.

But Dan noted in his post, “Another raised crosswalk on the Marshall side would have apparently also been effective (especially to slow drivers before the eastbound curve onto 24th Boulevard), so we wonder why CDOT did not include one there.”

In early August, CDOT installed concrete curb-separated bike lanes at the 24th/Montrose curve. But the agency has not extended this protection across California. East of the curve at 24th Boulevard, the bike lane still consists only of painted, unprotected lanes.

The Korns wonder why the concrete bike lane guard was not extended further from Marshall/24th. This is especially true north of the curve on Marshall, where bike lanes and mixed-traffic lanes converge without guards. When I recently visited the area with Dan, we saw drivers repeatedly crossing the painted line and drifting into the bike lane when turning, forcing cyclists against the aforementioned sidewalk extensions at Marshall’s crosswalks.

In addition, the section of concrete bike lane on 24th Boulevard in front of Saucedo has had drainage problems since it was built. Some of Chicago’s newer bike lanes have been affected by flooding for days.

When Dan recently saw a water crew visiting the flood area, workers told him that fixing the problem would have to wait. “The crew said they would have to bring the big truck to the drain to fix the problem,” he posted on Facebook. “They didn’t want to drive over the concrete that separates the bike and car lanes because the truck is very heavy and the concrete is ‘green,’ meaning it hasn’t had much time to cure and strengthen, and they were worried it might just collapse.”

East of that stretch, just in front of the school, the curb divider becomes an unprotected, de facto parallel parking lane, where Korns said families will surely park starting today to drop off their children at Saucedo. If past years are any indication, Dan said he “strongly suspects that motorists will continue to park illegally in the bike lanes and possibly even on the concrete dividers.”

At the very least, the city needs to solve the flooding problem as soon as possible. And hopefully CDOT will add concrete protection further east on 24th Street so that the bike lanes aren’t just used as parking lanes.

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