In " Chicago's New Bike Lanes Spark a Rebellion from Businesses ," Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Barret looks at the issue of bike lanes and their effect on businesses on the Southwest Side.

Note that a paid or temporary subscription to the Wall Street Journal is required to read the article.

Barrett attended the July 21, 2026, meeting of the Southwest Chamber of Commerce , at which I presented on Bike Lanes and Businesses (some slides from the presentation below). 

Included in the coverage is the role of the chamber and a quote from President pro tem Carlos Chavarria, co-owner of Kristoffer's Cakes , on how businesses should stop being excluded from municipal decision-making that affects them directly.

Chamber meeting attendee and bike lane advocate Andrew Mack was also quoted in the article and presented with a photo of his biking setup.

The next Southwest Chamber of Commerce meeting is set for breakfast on Tuesday, August 18, at a to-be-announced location.





 

As the creation of the bike lanes is part of the Ordinance passed 48-0 in 2023 that requires CDOT to build transit efficiency, traffic calming, bike/ped safety standards. It is the law and was passed after a terrible week back in June of 2022 where we lost 3 children and a community organizer.

Our city averaged 300 crashes a day sending 6.5 people to the ER with debilitating injuries and 2 a week to the morgue. Since Chicago Complete Streets has been introduced we have seen a drop in those numbers.

So tired of this bike lanes being singled out as a boogy man when it is the law in the city that these items are built into our transportation grid to alleviate the pressures of traffic, crashes, and, fatalities.

Let’s be a little more nuanced and report on the full story not the anti bike lane rhetoric.

Hi Lily!

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on bike lanes implementation. We appreciate you taking the time to engage here in our Forums.

I agree that a lot of nuance is lost in discussion about these issues, especially with media's propensity to boil down a complex issue into an easy-to-digest, black-and-white, but incomplete view of the issues.

Details also get dropped by the wayside, such as existing plans and infrastructure for protected lanes on West Pershing Road as a major biking thoroughfare.

One of the things I learned when preparing for a presentation on "Bike Lanes and Businesses" at last week's meeting of the Southwest Chamber of Commerce -- as mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article -- was the varied results seen in serious studies of the issue: research that examined hard data like sales tax revenue, business openings and closings, etc.

My takeaways from these studies were trends that showed how some businesses do fine or grow when protected bike lanes change a street layout or remove parking, such as smaller and newer businesses that serve a local audience. However, other enterprises might lose business, especially those that rely on customers who travel to them from outside the immediate area.

I think these business-specific nuances are also being lost in discussion, just like other aspects of the issue can be (safety, transit, urban plan, etc.). However, whereas many of these latter have strident advocates and groups who have been included in decision-making, the business community has largely been shut out.

Integrating nuanced consideration might allow successful, broadly supported implementation of protected bike lanes in McKinley Park. However, this inclusivity requires more work, and it's not as convenient for easy messaging within the context of political campaigns and non-profit fund-raising.

It also feels like many times, when considering "community engagement," the decisions have already been made in advance, and the outreach, communication and meetings are front-loaded to prefer a given outcome. I've seen this a bunch of times locally, not just on the bike lanes issue.

I do think local implementation of bike lanes remains compelling for our communities, especially given all the demonstrated interest in it: here, in media, in social media, etc.

Thanks again for writing here, Lily!

If business owners do not participate in the public meetings and only demand, after the design and approval is done, that they be changed it’s a tough pill to swallow.

This is a city wide ordinance, not a Ward by Ward or Block by Block choose your own adventure. If we are to improve transit efficiency and bike/ped safety we need a city wide overlay.

You talk about business owners, I look at citizens in general. Our roads are dangerous and the City is working on it.

Chicago Complete Streets Ordinance was passed unanimously 48-0 in 2023 in response to 3 children and a community organizer being killed one week in 2022. Far to often we lose site of why these changes were implemented (300 crashes a day, 6.5 folks to the ER with debilitating injuries and two a week to the morgue) and only focus on the anger of the day.

Talk to the Alders that voted for it, ask them why they have abandoned their conviction, why they didn’t take the past few years to explain why these changes were done. Have you read about the ordinance yourself?

Hi Lily!

Thanks again for writing here. I have not read the ordinance, but I appreciate you filling me in. I am aware that bike lane infrastructure is City of Chicago policy, including building a transit "grid" that connects all parts of the city for bikers, and the fundamental intentions of Complete Streets.

Indeed, I and others wondered about South Archer Avenue as an option for protected bike lanes and other improvements: It's pretty much the Southwest Side equivalent to North Milwaukee Avenue. However, as I learned through my reporting, Archer is a state road and truck route without options for Complete Streets.

In terms of nuance, I think that considering perspectives from multiple types of stakeholders will bring better results for all. For example, individual citizens are affected by their local environment, and if businesses aren't able to operate, then citizens' local amenities, jobs, places to eat and shop, etc. might go away.

On McKinley Park's West 35th Street, there's a big push to reinvigorate the corridor's economy through up-zoning, street beautification and events. But at the same time the City of Chicago and other entities did not engage businesses at all about removing parking, such as shown in the published plans of CDOT's Southwest Side Neighborhood Bike Network Task Force.

Safety should be prioritized, however, getting this done will be most effective if presented in the context of other effects, too. I think that advocates for bike lanes would have much greater success by including affected businesses in planning: both to look for ways that businesses can take advantage of increased bike traffic, and steps to mitigate business losses when relied-upon parking gets removed, especially for small businesses.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here.

again there are many facets to this discussion, yet folks choose to focus on bike infrastructure as it is politically expedient for votes.

let’s take a step back from blaming bike advocates for making these changes and look at CDOT following the law working on making our roads safer and transit more efficient.

Business owners need to be a part of the discussions, I agree, but if they do not participate in public meetings and Alders choose to not spend time explaining what they voted for and why it benefits all residents one can’t really be mad at advocates for safe streets, transit efficiency and CDOT for getting things done and following the law.

You are ignoring the fact that this is a citywide ordinance as well as the crash data provided only wanting to argue that business owners that did not go to public meetings to understand what their community was up to and Alders that voted for it should have a over reaching power to stop years long processes and public discourse about creating safer streets for all Chicagoans. At least that is how your article and replies to me seem.