The Chainlink

route suggestions, Bucktown to Oak Park?

I'm planning to visit my friend in Oak Park (near East & Madison) on Tuesday evening and would ideally like to bike there and train back to Bucktown (near the Western Blue Line stop).  Only trick is, I almost never ride west of Kedzie, so I'm not really sure what the best route would be.

Google wants to send me west on the 606, then west on Armitage, south on N Laramie Ave, and west on Washington Blvd.  I'd just skip the 606 and do the whole stretch west on Armitage.  Despite the dotted green line on the google map, Laramie doesn't look much different than any other street on Street View; the city doesn't even appear to have put any pointless sharrows down.  So I have no idea if it is really busy or the pavement is any good, etc.

My eyeballs on the map say to go down Damen until Washington, then Washington all the way west.  That way I get non-PBL lanes for most of the route, plus I know the stretch south all the way on Damen.

Does anyone have any alternative suggestions?  I'll be biking there in the 5pm-6pm range.  I don't generally mind riding on streets without bike lanes, but I'd like to avoid accidentally putting myself on a Western-like stroad or other highway-ish mess full of high-speed traffic and angry drivers.  I also know very few of the neighborhoods between home and Oak Park, so I don't know if any of them are particularly dangerous for a cyclist on a nice bike during daylight hours.

Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on July 22, 2016 at 2:40pm

Hi Dave,  we have a "Routes" page under "Resources" on the top navigation that includes a route for Oak Park from the city: http://www.thechainlink.org/page/routes-to-and-from-oak-park-to-chi...

Hope that helps!

Permalink Reply by Dave Goodell on July 22, 2016 at 3:02pm

Awesome, I figured that info was on here somewhere and just didn't see it when clicking around.  Thanks!

Permalink Reply by millenial removing Bernie tattoo on July 22, 2016 at 3:05pm

The 606 will be a mess.  From Bucktown, I would take either Armitage/Grand (more traffic) or Wrightwood (less traffic) out west.   Then, take Narragansett/Ridgeland south to Oak Park.

Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on July 22, 2016 at 3:30pm
You just couldn't help yourself. smh. I deleted the last sentence for obvious reasons.
Permalink Reply by Ken Rogel on July 22, 2016 at 7:36pm

I like taking Washington out to Oak Park - nice ride, nice scenery, but a bit south of Bucktown.

Permalink Reply by Shawn Evans on July 23, 2016 at 4:39am

Damen to Washington is okay, if you don't mind traffic or stoplights. Same with Laramie, or Ridgeland.

There is a low-stress route that uses the 606 and side streets that avoids traffic, stoplights, potholes and hills, but it's a long list of streets, a lot of turns. I can list them if you want.

Permalink Reply by Dave Goodell on July 24, 2016 at 3:14pm
Sounds a bit slow for what I'm looking for. But thanks for the offer!
Permalink Reply by Shawn Evans on July 25, 2016 at 11:01pm

It's probably faster. But it's complicated.

Permalink Reply by Shawn Evans on July 28, 2016 at 4:53am

I didn't like the potholes and bumps on Augusta from Central Park to Kostner, so I take this route in the evening:
From the 606, exit at Lawndale and go south. There's a stoplight at North Avenue. Go south one block to LeMoyne. Turn right and go west. There's a stop sign at Hamlin, so no worries about traffic there. But at Pulaski, there's no stop sign or light, so be careful crossing (this is the only problem with the route).  Go west. When you cross the next street, Keystone, you may notice LeMoyne ends a block later. Midway thru the block, though, there's a driveway on the south side of LeMoyne. Take it to the sidewalk. Go west and turn the corner on the sidewalk of Karlov Ave. Shortly ahead is another driveway. Take it to the street. You're now on Karlov and up ahead is a stoplight for Grand. Go south one block to Hirsch. Turn right and go west one block to Keeler. Turn left and go south on Keeler. A few blocks south is Division (stoplight). Go south of Division one block. Turn right on Haddon and go west. Watch for cars while crossing Kostner. Continue west to Kolmar. Turn left on to Kolmar and go south to Augusta. I haven't had a problem with traffic on Augusta in the evening, so I take Augusta  west to Oak Park.
In the morning, I take a faster route to work (no 606 or Augusta), but you can still take side streets. I remember there being some traffic on Augusta in the morning (more than in the evening), but you can go around that if you don't want to travel much on Augusta.
From Oak Park, you can take Lake east to Scoville, turn left and go north to Ontario. Turn right on Ontario, go east to Austin. Cross Austin and go north to the next street, Ohio. Turn right and take Ohio east. There are stoplights at Central and Laramie. At Laramie, turn left (Ohio changes from one way east to one way west, so can't continue down Ohio). Go north on Laramie. One block north of Chicago Ave is Iowa. Turn right on Iowa. Go east on Iowa 3/8 mile. Turn left at Lamon Ave. Go north on Lamon to Augusta. Turn right and take Augusta east to Kilbourn. Turn left and go north on Kilbourn to Thomas. Turn right. Take Thomas east. Be careful crossing at Pulaski. Now there are 2 ways to go from here. The direct route is to take Thomas to Monticello, turn left and go north to the 3-way stoplight of Divison/Grand/Monticello. But then you have to wait for 1 of 3 stoplights to go green. But, if you take Ridgeway north to Division, then take Division east to Monticello/Grand, you can take a left on Monticello when you have the green on Division OR the green on Monticello (Monticello has very little traffic). Go north on Monticello to Hirsch. Turn right. Take Hirsch to Central Park. North on Central Park to Bloomingdale. Turn right. Take Bloomingdale one block to Drake. Take the Drake sidewalk to the 606 ramp.

Permalink Reply by yaj 7.4 on July 25, 2016 at 10:47am

I tried the 606 to Laramie option on Sunday.  Now having done both routes, I recommend the Damen to Washington version.  

Permalink Reply by ad on July 25, 2016 at 3:20pm

I ride from the loop to OP daily.  Many of us that do take Lake, and it does have a bike lane from Damen all the way out to Austin Blvd. (the boarder of OP and Chicago).  Washington west isn't bad, but you lose the bike lane east of Laramie, and the last mile or so before OP can be on a two-lane street that sees a lot of traffic.

 Everyone has a different idea of safety (and I'm really not looking for a debate), and I say this as someone who rides the route daily and does so both alone and with people that do it all the time, and some people I ride with (who have been riding through the west side for years) will not ride west using Augusta. 

If you ride out taking Grand, Division or Armitage, just note that streets like Cicero, Laramie, Central and Austin are pretty busy north/south corridor streets.  If you do ride out using one of the more-north streets, Cicero and Austin are similar to Western; and Laramie and Central aren't much better IMHO.  As others mentioned, Narraganset and Ridgeland aren't bad, but I would personally recommend using Damen to go south, and then either Lake or Washington to go west, as the better route out there.     

Permalink Reply by Shawn Evans on July 25, 2016 at 11:11pm

Speaking as someone who HAS used Augusta daily and has been riding through the west side for quite some time, there's nothing wrong with Augusta. But I don't ride it the whole way, just as far as Kostner, because of all the potholes from Kostner to Central Park. It's been months since I rode that section, so maybe they repaved it? But it seems they do more re-paving in the fall, so I'll probably test it then.

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