‘Why Does My Town Feel Like an Interstate?’
Young people under 18 are most common victims of pedestrian and bicycle crashes in Cicero, an analysis by the IL Department of Transportation shows. Community members, transportation planners and the Town of Cicero come together to identify solutions.
Diego Vazquez, 18, used to carefully plan his route home from school, crossing the intersection of 16th Street and 51st Court in Cicero, Ill. Photo by Efrain Soriano for Cicero Independiente.
By Efrain Soriano
Thousands of Cicero families rush to schools every afternoon to pick up their children. Some families have the luxury of owning a car and others use a mix of public transportation, walking or biking to commute to and from school.
For those who live near their school, crossing a few small streets may be enough to arrive safely at home. However, for residents like Diego Vazquez, a recent Morton East High School graduate, the route home requires more careful consideration.
“I would mainly take suburban areas like [51st Ct]. I would not go on Cermak because of how loud it was and just the fact that you could get hit by a car if you walk too close to the street,” said Vazquez. “It just adds more stress to everyday life because not only do I have to worry about stuff like how college is gonna go or like school stuff. Now I have to worry about how I am going to cross the street.”
Vazquez and his family live in the Northeast corner of Cicero, a primarily residential area bordered by large industrial zones, such as an Amazon facility. Some of Cicero’s largest streets, like Cermak Road and Cicero Avenue, also border this area. However, the stressors and challenges that Vazquez faces commuting to and from school are not unique to him.
According to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) Analysis of Illinois Department of Transportation Crash Data collected between 2018 and 2022, people 18 years or younger in Cicero have been the most common victims of pedestrian and bicycle crashes.
About 30% of the population in Cicero is under 20 years old, based on Census tract data.
This is why an initiative led by CMAP, a Chicago-based planning agency, has been working with community members and the Town of Cicero to identify actionable steps that the town can take to ensure our streets are safe for all.
When asked to comment on the driving factors that led the Town of Cicero to apply for assistance from CMAP, Tom Tomschin wrote, “The Safety Action Plan was a call for projects from CMAP. The Town has a working relationship with CMAP, and has worked with them on other projects, including most recently the Housing Needs Study. The Town has had positive interactions with CMAP, and the Town wanted to review traffic around Unity Jr. High, Morton Alternative School, and Morton Freshman Center.”
“The school drop off and pick up times are where we're seeing more crashes in Cicero. They might not be happening right next to the school, but it does seem like there is a density of cars approaching school areas between the hours of 2:30 and 3:30. Cicero is a very densely developed place, so there's just not a lot of extra room for cars to go,” said Victoria Barrett, the Senior Transportation Planner with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP).
Barrett and consultants from Muse Community Designs began working in early 2024 to analyze IDOT crash data and engage with members of the community to better understand the issues most affecting Cicero residents.
Forum Addresses Safety and Transportation Needs
Transportation safety in Cicero is complicated by the convergence of multiple modes of transit. At the intersection of 54th Ave and Cermak Rd, four lanes of car traffic mix with CTA buses, a train station, and dozens of school buses from Unity Jr. High—an area also serving four schools, creating a high-risk zone for young pedestrians and cyclists. Illustration by Paintbristle.
One of the challenges that Cicero faces in ensuring transportation safety is the mix of many modes of transportation in such proximity, according to Barrett. For example, take an intersection like 54th Ave. and Cermak Road. This intersection has four schools that feed directly into it, a train and bus station and dozens of school buses pouring out of Unity Junior High School, all competing with the four lanes of car traffic traveling on Cermak Road.
“When you think about an intersection, there are aspects of the intersection that address time so that signals. Certain people get to go at a certain time. And then there's issues that you address through separation in space. So we have sidewalks instead of having pedestrians on the roadway. And there are a lot of approaches now that are looking to get creative with those separations and time,” Barrett said.
On May 13, 2024, six Cicero residents participated in a community conversation at the Cicero Community Center, hosted by CMAP and Muse, to identify dangerous streets they avoid. The goal of the event was to ensure residents are involved in developing a Safety Action Plan. Courtesy of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning.
With all these unique challenges that Cicero faces, residents have come together to address the traffic safety needs of their neighbors.
CMAP and Muse facilitated their first community conversation at the Cicero Community Center in late May. This conversation included about 15 residents from various parts of Cicero, one of which was Vazquez. Residents shared their experiences and concerns about the many dangers they face while commuting in Cicero. The session ended with an in depth discussion about what solutions participants would like to see implemented in the town.
The solutions discussed included the construction of protected bike lanes, longer times for pedestrians to cross the street and raised crosswalks in zones that see a lot of young people.
When asked via email to comment on how the town intends to act on or take into consideration community input, Tom Tomschin wrote, “We have not yet seen the results from the community conversations, but the Town will surely take all recommendations into consideration with future policy recommendations.”
If you’d like to make your opinion on these issues heard, fill out CMAP’s new survey available here and stay on the lookout on Cicero Independiente’s social media for announcements of further community engagement events.
The Evolution Of Transportation in Cicero
Cicero, once envisioned as the western port of entry to Chicago, still relies on its original street infrastructure. However, a new vision proposes repurposing the town's wide streets to include safer infrastructure for bicycles and pedestrians. Illustration by Paintbristle.
“Why does my town feel like an interstate,” asked Vazquez during the first community conversation held by CMAP.
Whether you’re traveling down Cermak Road, Cicero Avenue or Ogden Avenue, it’s clear to most that Cicero’s streets were not created to protect the people who live here. When Vazquez posed this question to the group, many residents nodded in agreement. Even the facilitators from CMAP and Muse noted they had similar realizations while doing Cicero walkthroughs.
To answer this question, we have to look at the history of transportation in Cicero.
“Being the first suburb west to Chicago, has, from the very beginning of Cicero’s inception, meant that Cicero has almost been like a western port of entry for things coming into Chicago. If we go back to some of the earliest days, one of the biggest streets in Cicero, Ogden Avenue, was used first as an indigenous trade route, then later got turned into a plank road where folks from what would now be DuPage and Kane counties could take to get to Chicago,” said Jojo Galvan Mora, a curator at the Chicago History Museum who is also pursuing a doctorate in history at Northwestern University.
According to Mora, transportation and the distribution of goods are built into Cicero’s DNA. Whether it’s the majority of the world’s telephone communication equipment being manufactured in Cicero, Hawthorne Western Electric shuttling out parts for U.S fighter planes in World War II, or the recent addition of an Amazon warehouse on Roosevelt Road, trucks have been coming in and out of Cicero for decades.
“I think what most people are struck by when they visit Cicero, is when they go over the really big Laramie Avenue Bridge where they see the BNSF rail yard that sort of splits the town in two. That ethos of ‘Things need to pass through here’ carried over into the roads. In a way, it was almost putting vehicles over people first,” said Mora, who lived in Cicero for most of their life.
“It's also something that my friends and I would joke about. That Cicero was not made for people, it was made for cars. Once we started driving, we were like ‘This is so much easier to get around Cicero’,” said Diego Vazquez, an 18-year Cicero resident.
How Can We Make Our Streets Safer?
Reimagining Cicero's streets: Transforming a interstate-like road into a safer, more inviting space for pedestrians and cyclists with raised sidewalks, and dedicated bike lanes. Illustration by Paintbristle.
The structure of large roads in Cicero resembling that of an interstate can influence a driver’s decision to go well above the speed limit, according to Vazquez. Especially when some drivers fall back on following the flow and speed of traffic instead of the posted speed limit.
When the town of Cicero first applied to receive assistance from CMAP on transit safety, the biggest concern was the safety of schools, said Victoria Barrett, the senior transportation planner with CMAP.
“One thing that we try to make schools safer is to keep cars away from them. I just read that the city of Paris just closed off the streets that are along grade schools to traffic. And basically just said, ‘We're not letting cars get close to the entrances of our schools anymore because we have little kids running across the streets’. You know, we can just eliminate that risk by closing off streets,” said Barrett.
Sz Donnely, a Berwyn resident and a safe streets advocate of 15 years, outside the Oak Park Library on September 30, 2024. Efrain Soriano/ Cicero Independiente.
To learn more about what can be done to make our roads safer and protect kids walking or biking to school, Cicero Independiente spoke to Sz Donnelly, a Berwyn resident who has been a Safe Streets advocate for over 15 years.
“So the first thing I would do for Berwyn/Cicero, and this is going to get people upset, I would remove one side of parking on all streets,” Donnelly said. “Straight lines and wide streets encourage people to go faster. We eliminate one side of parking on every street and put in a [protected] bike lane. But we don’t just leave it straight. If there's a person who needs a handicap spot on the side of the street … we can create the road to weave back and forth and that curve will slow down traffic.”
Although the structure of Cicero’s roads is a big part of the problem, according to Donnelly, they said we still need to do more to educate young people in the community about biking and driving safely. They propose that Cicero schools should implement biking education for every grade from Kindergarten to 8th grade. Donnelly said that teaching kids how to pedal, steer and brake is simply not enough.
“When the kid gets old enough to be able to ride around on their own but not old enough to drive and they're out on the street, all the adults get upset and say ‘Look at these d****** kids, they don’t know how to ride on the street.’ Well, who taught them how to ride safely around traffic?” said Donnelly.
When asked via email about what actionable steps residents could take right now to make our streets safer for kids, Tom Tomschin from the Town of Cicero wrote, “From my experience, it seems like alot of vehicular traffic is condensed due to arrival and dismissal traffic. For residents, this could mean leaving 10 to 15 minutes earlier than normal, to help spread the traffic out into longer times … Apply to be a crossing guard, and help move kids/parents through intersections. For residents that are driving, the rules of the road should be paramount. Acknowledging and respecting the pedestrian's right of way would go a long way.”
Over the next few months, CMAP will continue to work closely with town officials and Cicero residents to create a plan of action to address the many transportation needs of the town.
If you’d like to learn more about some of the solutions mentioned today, such as the protected bike lanes, raised crosswalks and others, check out our social media to watch a breakdown of what transportation safety means.
Efrain Soriano is the Youth and Schools Reporter for Cicero Independiente and a freelance photographer in the local area.
Want to read more stories like this? Consider donating to support our work. Your money goes directly towards paying journalists of color to report on local news.
SUBSCRIBE
Bringing you news from the 60804
We respect your privacy and will only use your information to send you our latest posts.