Cook County Bans Bikes from Des Plaines River Trail in River Forest

Putting aside that this op-ed is really, really stupid, the news is that bikes (and horses) are now banned from the portion of the Des Plaines River Trail between Madison St. and North Ave. on the River Forest side of the river.

http://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/10-30-2012/Work:-impossible-fo...

Tags: ban, cook, county, des, plaines, river, singletrack, trails

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Cameron 7.5 mi on November 13, 2012 at 12:22am

Wow, that's some poor high school paper style journalism there. While I enjoy hiking there I've never seen a horse or a bicycle on that stretch of trail. I've hardly ever seen other hikers for that matter. This seems like a solution in search of a problem.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by 1zt7hr8qm0y90 on November 13, 2012 at 12:35am

It's a small stretch but that makes it hard to transfer to the Illinois Prairie Path and the Grand Illinois Trail. What is the reason for this omnipotant and profound decision?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Wirtz on November 13, 2012 at 8:07am

I can't believe anyone would pay someone to write that article.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by h' 1.0 on November 13, 2012 at 8:17am

The entirety of information searchable online about this seems to be this discussion.

Douglas Iverson said:

It's a small stretch but that makes it hard to transfer to the Illinois Prairie Path and the Grand Illinois Trail. What is the reason for this omnipotant and profound decision?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tricolor on November 13, 2012 at 9:24am

Is that one of those news aggregation sites where someone on the other side of the world writes the articles? I've gone out of my way to hire English and Journalism students because they tend to be more detail oriented.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by OLB 0.1 on November 13, 2012 at 9:58am

I live less than a mile from where the trail crosses North Ave. The trail was closed to entry going in both directions a couple of years ago. There were two floods (August 2010 and July or so 2011) that caused a huge mess throughout the trail, including this section. The trail entry on North Ave was closed in both directions for a while. It didn't take long for people to ignore this and continue riding North from here. I still see people riding this section regularly, but I almost never see anyone entering or leaving the North Ave to Madison section mentioned in the article. In fact, I have often seen them exiting from the north and then moving over to Thatcher Rd (100 ft away) to continue riding south. I haven't been over there myself, so I can't comment on the conditions.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by notoriousDUG on November 13, 2012 at 10:05am

That is a terrifyingly poorly written article.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Apie (10.6) on November 13, 2012 at 10:18am

I live a few miles away, and did a little riding there in the summer. I saw one other biker, but we were north of North Ave. I also saw horse manure, so that confirms that horses do walk on the trail.

That really is just a small stretch of of the whole trail

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on November 14, 2012 at 1:10pm

The signs were put up less than 2 months ago to remind trail users of FPDCC policy: you can bike only on designated paths. The path where this sign was put up is not designated for biking. (This comes from FPDCC spokesperson in an email to me. She also said this path, near the river, floods easily/often and is harder to maintain.)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by kiltedcelt on November 14, 2012 at 1:25pm

The major problem I see with this article is in the first sentence of this quote.

Joey: Are you a dodo? Dat means our buds in dah Forest Preserve Police can start generating revenue by ticketing dem mountain bikers dat keep riding through dah woods. You know, dah ones with dah spandex. We post dah signs. Cops write dah tickets, and dah fancy pants bikers pay dah freight.

It should read "...Forest Preserve Police can start generatin' revenue by ticketin' dem mountain bikers dat keep riding trew dah woods."

C'mon! Everybody knows that southsiders all say "trew" instead of "through," not to mention you never use the "g" on a word that ends in "ing" when an apostrophe denoting the leaving off of said letter will convey dialect better. Sheesh! If you're going to use dialect in a written piece, at least get it right.