Pedestrian life in Chicago during the Coronavirus Pandemic

There have been hundreds of newspaper stories describing the emptiness of American cities during the Coronavirus Pandemic. This view doesn’t jibe with what I’ve observed at all. I’ll gladly admit that my experience during six weeks of “lockdown” (ever since March 16) may be distinctive. I haven’t been further than three miles from my apartment in southeastern Uptown, Chicago, for six weeks.¹ I’ve been all over Lake View, Edgewater, Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square, and North Center, but I haven’t been downtown or, in fact, anywhere near it. And one of the things I couldn’t help but notice is that there have actually been more people walking about than there usually are, at least at certain times of day.

One reason for this is that the lockdown in Chicago (as elsewhere in North America) has been far less strict than the lockdowns in, say, Spain, France, China, or India.² Residents have been encouraged to go outside to exercise, with the proviso that they must be willing to obey the social-distancing rules of which the most important has been: keep at least six feet from anyone else. It appears that a significant portion of the population, at least on nice days, has been taking advantage of this. Since gyms and the Lakefront parks have been closed,³ anyone wanting exercise has had to use neighborhood streets.

Take Broadway between Diversey Parkway and (roughly) Addison Street, for example, a stretch just over a mile long, lying entirely in the Lake View community area. This has been one of Chicago’s best walking streets for something like the last forty years (and maybe longer), at least if you judge the quality of a walking street by the number of pedestrians it attracts. On weekends and in early evenings, the street has always been crowded for as long as I’ve known it, even on days when it’s been exceptionally cold, snowy, hot, or rainy. There really is no time of day or night, however, when the street has been without pedestrians. There are any number of reasons for this, of which the most important is surely that the neighborhoods adjoining Broadway are by Chicago standards pretty heavily populated, with densities of something like 15,000 per square kilometer. Thus, walking is the most efficient way to move short distances.

During the lockdown, I haven’t seen Broadway anything like as crowded as it has traditionally gotten on, say, weekend afternoons, but there have still often been a huge number of pedestrians on the street. Peak hours, however, have changed. With so many people working from home (or not working at all), nice weather seems to be the main factor in bringing out crowds. The fact that, during the last two-thirds of April, it’s been rather chilly and wet in Chicago has perhaps made pleasant days all the more enticing.

Pedestrians walking along Broadway at Aldine Avenue this week. Note the masks—and the number of people walking in the street.

Neighborhood residential streets have also been very nearly as busy as they usually are. Again, there seem to be some changes in the usage patterns. There isn’t any longer a strong rush hour peak since many fewer people have been commuting to work. There have been some pretty dramatic peaks on nice afternoons, however.

Many of Chicago’s more pedestrian-oriented North Side neighborhoods, in other words, seem to be about as bustling as they were before the Pandemic arrived. While I can’t imagine anyone arguing that the Coronavirus Pandemic is anything other than a horrifying event, it has not emptied the streets of at least one part of one city.

There has, however, been one major problem. Most people seem to be taking the social-distancing guidelines quite seriously and are thus trying to avoid coming close to other people. But Chicago’s sidewalks don’t make this easy. The effective width of sidewalks in Chicago varies enormously, but few provide six feet of walking space. Even when they do, for example, along much of Broadway, the width of the sidewalk is curtailed severely by trees, bus-stop benches, bike racks, bike-share stations, light poles, newspaper boxes, electronic parking meters, wastebaskets, and fences enclosing now-empty restaurant seating areas.

Pedestrians and cyclists along Broadway at Stratford Place. Note how street furniture reduces the sidewalk’s effective width. Before the corner restaurant’s recent closure, it had a fenced-in outdoor dining area between the trees.

On residential streets, sidewalks are typically a great deal narrower than six feet. Even where the distance between the lot line and the street is more than this, much of it is often taken up by substantial strips of vegetation called “parkways” in Chicago’s vanishing working-class English.

Pedestrians in the neighborhood called Saint Ben’s by many locals (it’s part of the North Center community area). Note the narrow pavement—and the wide “parkway.”

As a result, walking on Chicago’s sidewalks these days often forces people closer than six feet from each other. Alternatively, it requires constant lateral moves, to the edge of the sidewalk for example, or onto the parkways or front lawns, or even into the street. I’ve sometimes found myself making substantial swerves two or three times a block. And it’s become normal to see people walking (or running) in the roadway. Because traffic levels are way down, this isn’t as unsafe as one might think, but it’s hardly desirable.

Pedestrians walking in the street on Leland Avenue, west of Ravenswood Avenue, in the neighborhood often called Ravenswood, which is part of the Lincoln Square community area.

The situation would almost seem designed to keep people home. Perhaps this isn’t a bad thing, but it’s somewhat at odds with the government’s professed desire to encourage exercise.

So far Chicago’s government has resisted the “slow streets” movement that has opened some roadways to pedestrian and bicycle traffic in Oakland, New York, and elsewhere. The mayor claims that, in driving around the city, she hasn’t noticed any problems. Perhaps she should try walking.

Note added 5 June 2020. Chicago’s Department of Transportation announced on May 29 that it would create some “shared streets” comparable to other cities’ “slow streets.” The first opened on June 1. For a blog post on this, click here.