HYDE PARK — A series of tweets this month calling out people for driving on Promontory Point bike paths and parking on green spaces touched off a digital firestorm.
Eric Allix Rogers, a photographer, bicyclist and South Shore resident, commutes to work via the lakefront bike path. One night over Labor Day weekend, he came across parked cars, which would have had to drive across the bike paths to reach the green space.
“At least a dozen cars parked on the grass between the trail and lake, between 56th and 57th, at 11pm on Monday night. A fine welcome back to Chicago for me. Cars are ruining this city,” he tweeted.
Others chimed in with photos and descriptions of similar issues, with drivers on bike paths and driving through a pedestrian underpass on 55th Street.
“Currently like 12-15 cars just parked / driving at Promontory Point. This is becoming a crisis,” tweeted bicyclist Steven Lucy, a Hyde Park resident who contributes to Streetsblog Chicago.
The issue has been percolating for months, with poor, missing or confusing infrastructure leading drivers to veer onto spaces reserved for bicyclists and pedestrians, locals said.
But some who saw the tweets felt white bicyclists were unfairly criticizing Black South Siders who “have been doing this for longer than you’ve been here,” in the words of one Twitter user.
“Looks like Black and Brown people enjoying a nice time on the lakefront. They aren’t bothering you, why is this even an issue? Gentrifiers are ruining Chicago,” another user added.
One tweeted a single word in response: “Racist.”
Community-focused. Reader-funded. Journalist-run.
Support Chicago’s neighborhood news. Support Block Club today.
Rogers and others who chimed into the debate say their frustration is not so much with errant drivers. Rather, the Chicago Park District should better maintain the infrastructure to ensure cars, bikes and pedestrians are in their designated spaces, so everyone can safely and equitably enjoy the park.
“I think it’s really incumbent on the city to take measures that make the park accessible in other ways,” including by expanding bus routes and, crucially, protecting bike paths, which serve as a real means of transportation, Rogers said.
“I think that parks can and should serve a very wide range of uses for as many people as possible. And, you know, I think there’s always going to be a balancing act in terms of making those uses coexist with each other, right?” he said.
‘The Point Is For Everyone To Enjoy’
The issue of cars venturing into banned park areas, necessitating more protection for Lakefront Trail users, has come up before at Promontory Point.
In summer 2022, horrified witnesses watched as dozens of South Siders drove onto the Lakefront Trail to bypass an accident on DuSable Lake Shore Drive. Those drivers then found themselves snarled in more traffic as they tried maneuver through an underpass near The Point.
This came amid a particularly deadly year of crashes involving cars and bicyclists. Rogers said at the time the issue showed a need for “safe physical infrastructure that prevents cars from accessing places where they shouldn’t be.”
Similar problems led to some of the more recent issues, often near 51st, 55th and 57th streets.
A bollard that is supposed to block cars from driving through the 55th Street underpass was frequently folded down, enabling drivers to bypass it. There often are not clear signs saying cars are prohibited and pull offs from DuSable Lake Shore Drive are unmarked, sometimes making it difficult to gauge where cars should go.
GPS directions often didn’t help, directing drivers into the park instead of to a nearby lot or even stop on DuSable Lake Shore Drive itself.
Indeed, following the digital blowback over Labor Day weekend, the Hyde Park Herald reported the neglected bollard was raised and even received a fresh coat of paint. A new sign went up saying the underpass was only for “authorized vehicles,” and drivers on pedestrian trails risked receiving tickets.
More recently, barriers went up to block drivers on DuSable Lake Shore Drive from turning directly onto the path at 51st Street, and at an emergency vehicle access point on the south end of the Point.
Park District officials didn’t not respond to requests for comment.
But some felt tweeting about the issue essentially targeted non-white parkgoers relaxing at the park — or worse, made them a target for any sort of enforcement.
Evan Moore, a longtime South Shore resident, writer and former journalist, responded to Rogers’ tweet, saying “Cars aren’t the issue ‘ruining’ the city.”
“Lakefront spaces aren’t as accessible as they used to be,” which threatens the “decades-long outside culture” of the South Side and pushes drivers into the park, Moore wrote.
Construction on the Obama Center Presidential Library has eaten into South Side park space — and parking space — in nearby Jackson Park.
“[I]t’s ok to talk to these folks instead of taking photos of them,” he tweeted. “I don’t think social media scolding will get to the bottom of this.”
Moore declined to comment further.
East Hyde Parker Nora Friedman said she’s tried to talk to motorists driving on bike and pedestrian trails, concerned for the safety of children and bicyclists. But much like their digital mirrors, those conversations can get ugly fast, Friedman said.
Friedman said that while many of the motorists she has spoken to said they were unaware cars weren’t allowed at the Point — they’d simply followed their peers —others have greeted her with “outright hostility.” One encounter devolved into “everybody shouting at each other,” a result she blamed herself for as much as the motorist, she said.
“The end result of that became: If you want us to leave, you’re gonna have to call the cops. And I have no interest in calling the police on a family having a picnic on Labor Day,” Friedman said.
The best solution is for the city to improve infrastructure and signs to streamline how people in their preferred mode of transportation can get to their local parks, Friedman and Rogers said. That should include finding new ways to accommodate cookouts, picnics and motorists, she said.
“In the long term, if people are interested in having a sort of tailgate-type picnic event, I think that we should re-examine some of the parking lots that we have,” Friedman said. “I’m fully in support of enabling people to be able to access the park with their small children, carrying barbecues, if they have some sort of physical disability or get tired easily. The Point is for everyone to enjoy.”
Rogers and others said and tweeted they don’t want punitive measures against drivers. Rogers criticized the new Point signs that threatens police action, saying any misuse of the parks should be handled by the Park District.
“I don’t want to roll the police cars and the tow trucks out after these people that are doing this. I want passive measures taken with bollards and gates and signage to make it clear that they’re not supposed to be there,” Rogers said.
In an interview with the Hyde Park Herald, Ald. Desmon Yancy (5th), whose ward includes the Point, said the Park District should “use whatever we have available to us to prevent folks from being bad neighbors.”
“We want to make sure that we’re making it clear that this isn’t what this space is designed for, and shouldn’t be used for vehicle transportation,” Yancy told the Herald.
Yancy’s office confirmed the bollard preventing vehicle traffic from accessing the Point had been raised and that further “concrete barriers” had been put in place, although they did not confirm where.
Yancy’s office did not respond to Block Club’s request for comment.
Support Local News!
Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods. Already subscribe? Click here to gift a subscription, or you can support Block Club with a tax-deductible donation.
Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast:
