No place like a Home Zone

By Lisa Phillips

Active Trans member Julie Dworkin and her husband John Edel live on a leafy, comfortable block in Logan Square. They have two small children who frequently play in front of their house and ride their bikes up and down the sidewalk with friends. They own their home and plan to live on the block for a long time.

By the summer of 2007, Dworkin and other parents on their block of Albany Avenue were concerned about car speeds on the street. They noticed that the travel lanes were wider than average, and the block is at an unusual -- but convenient -- diagonal between Kedzie Boulevard and Fullerton Avenue, so that drivers use it as a high-speed short cut.

Dworkin, at the time a board member of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, decided to invite neighbors to explore the concept of a Home Zone for the block. Home Zones are a European traffic calming concept, described as "protected, ultra-low-speed zones in residential and commercial areas where walking, biking, playing, socializing and green space have priority."

Dworkin and Edel announced the meeting via an e-mail list, including 35th Ward Ald. Rey Colon, and dropped flyers at every building on the block.

"We were lucky to have an alderman who was already primed to be supportive of this kind of initiative because of other bicycle and pedestrian activism in the ward,” Dworkin said. “Ultimately, though, it was the support of so many neighbors on the block that made it happen."

At the community's first meeting that summer, about a dozen interested neighbors and Randy Neufeld identified some common concerns and priorities, including slowing traffic while retaining on-street parking. Neufeld used a slide show to explain that the Home Zone could include a combination of infrastructure changes such as bulb-outs, plantings and lane reduction, among others, in order to slow and reduce auto traffic in favor of safer space for people.

Neighbors got to work on design ideas for the Home Zone. At least a half dozen subsequent meetings with Chicago Department of Transportation engineers, the alderman's office, and the Active Transportation Alliance have been held in the last two years to review the plan. This past summer at the street’s annual block party, 70 percent of the block’s residents voted in favor of the final plan.

The plan includes alternating diagonal and parellel parking, and bulb-outs with plantable green space which the community will maintain, so that traffic will preferably meander its way, rather than speed, down the block while children and adults play and socialize safely nearby. It is awaiting final approval and we expect it to be implemented in 2010.

Download the proposed Home Zone plan and its history at www.albanyhomezone.org.

Lisa Phillips is a ModeShift contributor who also lives on Albany Avenue with her family.