Yesterday someone died trying to walk across Lakeshore Drive about a half hour before sunrise. To those who do not frequent that area around Chicago Ave and Ohio St Beach you might think, “What in the world was somebody doing walking across the highway?”
Here’s the streetview image of that spot. You have 8 lanes of traffic that can move 60+ mph outside of rush hour, bifurcating a popular walking and biking path and a park and playground near the Northwestern hospital campus. The access to the lake is a sketchy underpass that is poorly marked in broad daylight, and likely invisible to most people at night. Until the city and state governments accept that Lakeshore Drive is horrible for everybody in its current configuration nothing will change. People will continue to be cut off from the lake, and drivers will continue treat 8 narrow lanes as an interstate highway. Everybody in both groups should be upset about it, as it serves no one well.
As I bike on the Lakefront Trail I fully expect to keep seeing crushing gridlock on Lakeshore Drive during rush hour, and horrific accidents that frequently cost lives and shutdown a major artery to move people between the north side and downtown.