Moran: Planned Lake Michigan shoreline trail better a century late than never

chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/news/ct-lns-moran-lakefront-trail-plan-st-0420-story.html

Dan Moran

On a recent blustery April day, the unfortunately meager trail that makes up almost the entirety of Lake County’s non-motorized path along Lake Michigan looked especially lonely.

From the Wisconsin state line down to Lake Cook Road, the county is blessed with some 25 miles of waterfront on a Great Lake. And, give or take a relatively short public path here and there at places like the Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve in Lake Forest and Foss Park in North Chicago, there are roughly five miles of public hiking/biking trails — all of them at Illinois Beach — that can arguably be described as near Lake Michigan.

To break that down even more, only about a mile of the Illinois Beach trails is truly close to the shoreline. If you’re among those who have walked or biked it, you know that this trail offers a beautiful view on a summer day with a breeze off the Big Lake — but if you blink, you missed the beauty.

By sharp contrast, Chicago’s lakefront is blessed with an 18.5-mile non-motorized path that runs from Ardmore Avenue in Lincoln Park all the way down to 71st Street in Washington Park.

According to the Chicago Architecture Center, the trail’s formation dates back to 1963, when Mayor Richard J. Daley looked to establish a lakefront bicycle path. But the roots really go back to the 1909 Plan for Chicago, when Daniel Burnham envisioned an uninterrupted public lakefront.

Much of Lake County’s end of Lake Michigan is, of course, reserved for the old- and new- money landowners who built private fortresses on the water, mostly south of what is now Route 137.

But from North Chicago up to Wisconsin, there are vast swaths of shoreline wide open for something like Chicago’s lakefront trail. This week’s news that northern lakefront communities along that stretch are looking to build a public trail system is good news indeed, even if it is arriving up to a century late.

As reported by the News-Sun’s Emily Coleman, officials in North Chicago, Waukegan, Beach Park, Zion and Winthrop Harbor are teaming with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning to draw up a $160,000 plan that will “develop a vision for a trail system in an area

1/3 covering 12 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline,” according to documents posted by Waukegan.

“The Partner Communities understand how safe and comfortable walking, bicycling and access to transit along the northern lakeshore will help focus attention on prioritized investment in active transportation, strengthen the area’s green infrastructure and support growth by expanding transportation choices for the area,” states the intergovernmental agreement, which commits each municipality to spend a whopping $3,252 at this point.

Eventually, the Partner Communities might have to cough up quite a bit more to make this vision a reality. It will be money well-spent — a legacy investment not just for the locations involved but for the Great Lakes region as a whole.

More than 55 years after Chicago started turning its dreams of a public lakefront trail into reality, there can only be one operating thought when it comes to this new Lake Michigan dream: Make it so — and hopefully before another half-century passes.

All private property considerations to the south aside, it’s a shame that the 21st century is underway and it’s not possible to ride a bike along the Lake Michigan shore through the currently empty spaces north of Naval Station Great Lakes.

Not that there haven’t been efforts here and there. Back in 2015, Waukegan officials informally looked at putting in a bike path on a vacated railroad line that runs about a block west of the lakefront from the city’s southern limits up to Greenwood Avenue.

For various reasons — including the concept being tied to a larger lakefront land purchase that fell through — that abandoned line is still sitting there, looking forlorn.

We’ll see if the Chicago-based design team Epstein returns to that railroad line as an option for the Waukegan end of this would-be lakefront trail network. It’s a good if not perfect option, running right along the shore of the south lakefront but then ending up on the far side of the harbor area and industrial complex.

And, of course, it would take some heavy lifting to get a continuous path that runs along Waukegan Municipal Beach, which sits at the end of the maze-like Sea Horse Drive.

But north of Waukegan’s coal plant is mile after uninterrupted mile of Illinois Beach reserves, and beyond that is North Point Marina. The recreational cyclists who flock to the north-south Des Plaines River Trail and Robert McClory Bike Path — both of which could link to a lakeshore trail relatively easily via the North Shore Path — would have another place to dwell.

2/3 It’s also reiterated here that safe non-motorized paths aren’t just for weekend warriors — the working-class population is among those who use their bikes and feet to get around rather than using a car

Beach Park Village Administrator Jon Kindseth told the News-Sun this week that another component being looked at with the overall plan is to install sidewalks that would run along Sheridan Road just to the west of the lakefront. Currently, pedestrians live a dangerous existence, carving out rough paths along the shoulder. [email protected]

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