The fight for the lakefront

A new effort to close two gaps in the trail is the latest in a long-fought battle over Chicago's waterfront

One of Chicago's most celebrated features is its long, lined and paved lakefront trail. Another is its many distinctive neighborhoods.

One of those neighborhoods, on the city's far north side, is Rogers Park, where the lakefront trail disappears for two miles.

An old battle

In recent years, and really going back many decades before, advocacy groups and the city have looked at expanding the path from where it stops at Sheridan and Hollywood to where it picks back up in Evanston.

In 2006 a nonprofit group, Friends of the Parks, held a series of public meetings in Edgewater and Rogers Park to get community input on how and if the path could be expanded.

They took that input and, with the help of architects, roughed out four possible designs for each neighborhood, and for the two-mile section on Chicago's South Side where the trail disappears as well.

Untangling the issue

But the issue of expanding the lakefront path has been and remains tangled with a host of other changes that the city and various other interests have in mind for the lakefront in Edgewater and Rogers Park -- almost all of which the people who live in the neighborhoods overwhelmingly oppose.

Almost no one in Edgewater or Rogers Park wants Lake Shore Drive expanded. Few, if any, want a marina installed at Hollywood. And the majority are opposed to any landfill being added to lakefront, if it would mean more land for the city to sell to developers.

A new plan

In May 2009, in conjunction with the centennial of Daniel Burnham's plan for the city of Chicago, Friends of the Parks will unveil new, more detailed proposals for closing the gaps -- plans that don't involve expanding Lake Shore Drive -- in the hopes of realizing Burnham's dream of a lakefront shared by everyone.