In the heart of Lincoln Park, a new installation has drawn the fury of some neighborhood residents.

       At issue is a stretch of Dickens Avenue where a series of bike lanes, lower speed limits, and slightly more than 200 feet of road closed to cars have formed a cycling “greenway.” The $1 million project, which also includes new crosswalks, speed bumps and curb bump-outs, has been in the works for years. Advocates and city officials say it will make the road more comfortable for all users, including cyclists traveling to Oz Park, the Lincoln Park Zoo and the lakefront.

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       But for some residents of the North Side neighborhood, the greenway has for years represented a threat. They fear the risk cyclists whizzing by might pose to students and pedestrians on a shared path near Lincoln Park High School, and say the street closure has the potential to further snarl traffic in a congested area. The bike project is an unnecessary and confusing eyesore, some have said, and many complain about the communication between public officials and the community.

       People use the sidewalk that is shared with bicyclists as the Dickens Greenway crosses through Oz Park on Jan. 7, 2024, in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

       The concerns are one example of the tension that often surrounds bike projects. Advocates say making the city more bike-friendly is crucial to its success, but residents sometimes fear changes to city streets, like narrowing driving lanes or eliminating street parking, could make it more difficult to get around by car. In at least one case, reaction to bike projects has prompted the city to remove protected lanes after they were installed.

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       Still, the city has outlined a strategy to build out Chicago’s bike network. The Chicago Department of Transportation, under former commissioner Gia Biagi, released a bike plan in spring 2023 it described as “a roadmap for how we can transform the way we use our streets.”

       The city added about 55 miles of bikeways in 2023, marking the largest single-year addition ever, as more residents ride bikes to get around the city, CDOT Complete Streets Director Dave Smith told aldermen Wednesday.

       “Cycling is critical to becoming the city that we aspire to be,” he said. “It’s not just about biking or providing space for someone to ride a bike, but it’s about achieving many, many city goals, including public health, climate, sustainability, affordability, access to education, access to employment, youth engagement.”

       But the reaction to the Dickens Greenway, which has been particularly vocal, offers a preview of what the city could encounter as it moves forward with the bike strategy.

       “This was literally the most contentious community issue I had to deal with in my 4.5 years working there,” Erik Wallenius, former chief of staff to the ward’s previous alderman, said on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “More acrimonious than affordable housing, late night liquor licenses, or cannabis dispensary. And some of it from self-described environmentalists! Absolute madness.”

       Since construction on the greenway finished in mid-December, Alex Perez, with the advocacy group Active Transportation Alliance, has already used the route to access the Lakefront Trail on his way downtown from his home in Avondale.

       The Active Transportation Alliance has tried to build support for this and other bike projects, saying better options for walking, cycling and public transit can improve the health of residents and the sustainability and equitability of the city.

       Perez used Dickens as his preferred route downtown even before the greenway was constructed. It was a quieter, safer option than busier streets with bike lanes nearby, he said. He sometimes took his teenage siblings riding on the road.

       A bicyclist heads up the block of the Dickens Greenway where it’s closed to vehicle traffic at Stockton Drive in Lincoln Park on Jan. 7, 2024. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

       Now that the street has its own bike infrastructure, he hopes it will attract more cyclists, making it even safer for those who choose to use it, he said. He also hopes it will be a safe option for young bike riders, or for families walking with strollers.

       “We’re thinking about it more as a safe alternative for people of all abilities,” he said.

       But Lincoln Park residents like Stephanie Munger strongly oppose the greenway. Munger, vice president of an advisory council for the large Oz Park adjacent to Dickens, said she understood the need to make cycling safer in some parts of the city. But she raised concerns about the Dickens bike path’s proximity to the park and nearby Lincoln Park High School.

       The portion of the park along which the bike path runs is already crowded with high school students, dog walkers and children, she said. Munger thought it would be risky to add cyclists into the mix.

       “It’s dangerous,” she said. “You lose sight of your 6-year-old, and the next thing you know they’re plowed into by a cyclist.”

       A sign marks the block of the Dickens Greenway bicycle path at Stockton Drive. Stockton runs through the park and to Lincoln Park Zoo. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

       Munger and other residents also said they felt like their concerns about the project were ignored. Munger compared the bike project process to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s infamous Meigs Field raid, when, in the dead of night, bulldozers gouged X’s into the runway on what is now Northerly Island, rendering the lakefront airport unusable.

       “It’s harder and harder in the city to get around in a car, and we know that they’re trying to discourage and limit car use,” she said. “But there are people that are always going to drive a car. Cars aren’t going anywhere. Neither are bicycles.”

       Michael Stauffer, who lives at the east end of the greenway, worried the closure of the east end of Dickens at the edge of Lincoln Park could make traffic congestion worse, especially with several preschools and grade schools nearby. Cars would be forced to find other routes to get to Stockton Drive, which runs through the park and to Lincoln Park Zoo, and the closure could pose a safety hazard to people in the area, he said.

       The new paint and signs that came with the project are also confusing, he said. In some cases, while driving, he hasn’t known how to react to new bike-focused graphics. He also worries about those cyclists who, to him, seem to have little regard for drivers or the rules of the road.

       “We’ve got to find a way to coexist,” he said. “Bikes are not going away, cars are not going away. But I’m afraid that a lot of what’s going on with the bike lanes is, they’re just encouraging bikes to take over.”

       The bike project was funded by money from the Divvy bike-share system designated for transportation uses. At one time, CDOT officials said they planned to use federal funds to cover about 80% of the costs, but CDOT said it’s common to adjust funding sources for projects.

       CDOT spokeswoman Erica Schroeder said the street closure at the east end of Dickens came after the agency heard concerns about that intersection, and it is designed to provide “more comfortable” access to Lincoln Park for pedestrians and cyclists.

       The section of the path that runs through Oz Park was already open to cyclists before the greenway was installed, she said in an email, and greenways in other neighborhoods also travel through parks.

       Ald. Timmy Knudsen, 43rd, has backed the bike project since he took office toward the tail end of the approval process, viewing it as a way to help connect Lincoln Park residents and others across the city to the neighborhood’s parks and lake. He said he’s already used the greenway, riding his bike along Dickens recently to meet a constituent for coffee.

       The project has been surrounded by tension for years, but that might have contributed to negotiations to make the greenway better, he said. It’s part of what Knudsen deemed the “Midwest style” of making the city more bike-friendly, allowing residents time to acclimate to new projects as they are more slowly added.

       “There are ways that we can make it safer for the three tranches of groups, which are drivers, walkers, bikers,” he said. “There’s a way for these streets to work well together and be safer. It’s not one or the other.”

       Pedestrians cross the bicycle path of the Dickens Greenway on Jan. 7, 2024. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

       Reaction to the Lincoln Park project, though strong, is not unusual. Some 10 years ago, CDOT installed protected bike lanes on three West Side boulevards, only to later remove them because they “did not align with the neighborhood’s stages of bike network development.” After several years of building relationships in the community, protected bike lanes were returned to two of the boulevards, the agency wrote in its cycling plan.

       Part of the response to bike lanes can be emotional, said Audrey Wennink, transportation director at the Metropolitan Planning Council, an organization that has urged prioritizing walking, biking and transit. Some fear that the solution to road safety is to avoid attracting cyclists, but city residents are already turning to bikes to get around, she said.

       “It’s not a reasonable approach to say, ‘oh we only are going to have biking in one place, and we’re going to have cars in another place,’” she said. “That doesn’t work, and that’s not what an urban fabric should be.”

       One solution, she said, is to assume building bike lanes isn’t optional. Public input can help with design and details, but the bike lanes are coming either way.

       Perez, with the Active Transportation Alliance, said education about what new signs mean and how to drive around new bike infrastructure can help ease the transition for drivers.

       “People are dying and the earth is melting, so we need to do it,” Wennink said. “And it’s just that we don’t accept that people can stop these things that are lifesaving things.”

       sfreishtat@chicagotribune.com