Lake Forest residents attending a workshop Monday told city planners they want an east-west bike route as well as access to Libertyville, Chicago Botanic Garden and the local beach.
About 30 residents split into five groups during the workshop at the Gorton Community Center as they brainstormed ideas city officials said could be incorporated into the city’s first bike path master plan.
The five groups were asked to list desired local and regional routes and bicycling hazards and wrote down their ideas on paper before handing them to city planners at the end of the meeting.
A major request among residents was an east-west route through the city.
Lake Forest resident Colin Silvester said the city’s main north-south routes, McClory Trail and Skokie Valley Bikeway, aren’t easily connected by a bicycling thoroughfare.
“Once I tried to bike Route 60 and was almost killed by a truck,” Silvester said. “I never tried that again.”
Residents said routes 41 and 43 were also hazardous in some places.
Many were also keen on bike routes that could connect to the city’s schools and train depots and that lead to regional hot spots like the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park.
The workshops are part of a process that began in August when the city surveyed city residents about their highest priorities for bike paths. About 400 residents filled out the survey, which was collected in October, said Megan O’Neill, a Lake Forest city planner.
“We asked, ‘Do you want more regional routes?’ The answer was ‘yes.’ We asked, ‘Do you want local routes?’ The answer was ‘yes,’ so now we are here to find out what are these connections that residents want,” O’Neill said.
The project is a joint effort between Lake Forest and Lake Bluff. The two towns are creating a planning document that can give both suburbs a general direction, she said.
Lake Bluff’s workshop is schedule for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at village hall, 40 E. Center Avenue.
Next month, the two suburbs expect to meet to disucss the findings in order to create a draft plan to be brought before residents for revisions. The Lake Bluff and Lake Forest boards expect to be presented with a master plan for a vote by June, O’Neill said.
