Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, Lily.

So I think a big part of the issue is that business owners (and citizens, too) were not included in explicit decision-making like that of the Southwest Neighborhood Bike Network Task Force .

You can check out this group's meeting notes and participants, and see that no businesses or business groups were part of the task force, even with readily available nearby chambers like the Greater Bridgeport and South Loop Chamber of Commerce and the Midway Chamber of Commerce.

Task force meetings were not open or announced, and I'm not aware of other neighborhood meetings that specifically addressed the issue of business concern of loss of parking due to protected bike lane construction. However, removing parking from one side of 35th Street is what the CDOT task force expressly recommends and presents as decided policy.

I don't think businesses are against bike lanes: I think they're concerned about loss of customer parking. And about being included in decision-making that affects them.

Thanks again, Lily.

there were public notices about these meetings

showing up after the fact to disrupt a public policy decision that is related to a citywide ordinance regarding transit efficiency, traffic calming, bike/pedestrian safety is kinda asking a lot non?

you want this to be about bike lanes and parking spaces when, as I have said many times, is about so much more.

I urge you to put a little more into your reporting and research on this ordinance.

I've never seen notice or promotion of meetings for the task force or 35th Street-specific changes (but we center our attention and canonical neighborhood calendar on the McKinley Park neighborhood). Are you referring to "citywide" meetings ala consideration of the whole Complete Streets program?

Thanks for your feedback.

Gentrification needs the legacy businesses out ... John Greenfield is a North Side ruling class intellectual transportation journalist and advocate who has spent much of his career working in or alongside Chicago's transportation policy community with a degree form teh University of Chicago. He is not a Brighton Park resident, and his professional background differs from many of the small-business owners and working-class residents quoted in the Archer Avenue debate.

Folks like this aren't journalists, and their publications aren't news.

These non-profit scriveners are advocacy marketers, and like any marketer, they want to be perceived as authentic news.

But they're not. Their purpose first and foremost is to market their advocacy agenda, rather than serving the needs of a news audience. That's not news.

I think audiences are smarter than these lying marketers posing as journalists, and I'm proud the McKinley Park News contrasts with these fools as a trustworthy, truthful source of information not motivated by a purpose paid for by wealthy funders.

Marketers posing as news is endemic in Chicago journalism, led by self-supporting network of non-practitioners at places like Medill and Public Narrative to siphon all the money supposedly meant to support news and instead put it in their pockets via their self-run programs. (It's all skewed to help non-profits who follow their social agendas: Other journalism voices are excluded, even wildly successful and impactful outlets like CWB Chicago.)

We serve our audience first and foremost, and despite all the pressure to pass along manufactured narratives, including from local groups and electeds, we will continue to publish the factual truth and all sides of it. Our audience can then make up their own minds about how they feel about the facts.

Don't trust the lies of advocacy marketers like Streetsblog. Trust authentic local news with the primary purpose of serving news readers.

Thanks for sharing, John.

Interesting you take John Greenfield to task for being a " non-profit scriveners are advocacy marketers" when you are part of a newly formed Southwest Chamber of Commerce who hosts anti bike lane meet and greets while publishing this website. What is the difference between you pushing your agenda and John Greenfields alleged one?