By John Greenfield
At yesterday’s press event for the reopening of the Leland Avenue Slow Street (the city calls them “Shared Streets”), I talked with 46th Ward alderman James Cappleman, whose district includes of parts of Uptown and adjacent neighborhoods, about other bike and pedestrian initiatives. At the end of the conversation, we discussed the extremely controversial installation of sidewalk bike lanes in the Lake Shore Drive viaducts of Lawrence and Wilson avenues, which many have argued was an (ultimately unsuccessful) strategy to displace homeless encampments. Following the transcript of our conversation, I’ll provide the response to Cappleman’s comments on the underpass issue from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, which sued the city over the project.